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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 
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Chap^^rCopyright No.._ 
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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 






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MANHOOD'S MORNING 



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" GO IT WHILE YOU'EE YOUNG." 



A BOOK TO YOUNG MEN 



BETWEEN 



FOURTEEN AND TWENTY-EIGHT YEARS OF AGE 



JOSEPH ALFRED CONWELL. 
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* * * « Unto you, young men, because ye are strong." 

( 

SEP 10 



A ,^<^ 

THE H0I1INIS BOOK CO. "2- 



Vineland, N. J., iVk^,V 

$00K CO. 
1896. 



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ENTERED ACCORDING TO ACT OF CONGF.ESS IN THE YEAR 1836. 

BY N\ RUSSELL, r^JV 4 

2N THE OFFICE OF THE LIBRARIAN OF CONGRESsNfcT WASHINGTON. 



PREFACE. 

America has been richly blessed in many ways, but 
its chief glory has always been the strength, patriotism 
and character of its } 7 oung manhood. 

No class of individuals occupy such vantage-ground 
in a nation as its young men. They must, of necessity, 
be an essential factor in all that counts for greatness 
and progress. 

It might be claimed that, to a certain extent, the 
book herein presented champions the cause of young 
men. No apology is deemed necessary for this feature 
inasmuch as the author is himself no longer young. I 
believe that young men are men in the highest, fullest 
and best sense, and that they should be so considered. 
No personal or selfish interests have entered into the 
thoughts incorporated. 

There are two mistakes easily, and too often, 
made in writing for the young. One is to deal only 
with great men — famous statesmen, generals, orators, 
heroes, scholars and financiers — and the gigantic and 



Vi PRKFACK. 

wonderful in history. The other is to scribble insipid 
yarns and twaddle. Both are apt to do harm. Those 
who read either are apt to miss their place in life — one 
by aiming beyond it, and the other by failing to aim at 
all. God has a place in the world for every man — 
for the high and the low; for the prominent and the 
obscure. To fill that particular place, no matter 
whether it be the chief executive chair or a cobbler's 
bench is the highest achievement. To aid and en- 
courage men to seek their divinely intended sphere in 
life, and cheer and inspire them to do their best therein 
is the highest possible mission of a book. 

It is not anticipated that this volume will escape 
criticism. Many, no doubt, will feel that too much is 
claimed for young men, that their sphere has been 
enlarged to an unwarranted scope. No innovations 
have been striven after. The book has been written 
under a firm conviction of its truth though, of course, 
not without a strong sense of its falibility. 

A portion of what the volume contains has formed 
the basis of a number of addresses delivered upon various 
occasions, chiefly to audiences of young men. These 
addresses were appreciated far beyond expectations and 
the numerous and pressing requests, from sources 
claiming my highest respect, that they be published, 
have greatly encouraged me in sending forth the book. 

The book has been written in a some what fragmentary 
manner, here a little and there a little, and under a 
great variety of circumstances. Consequently, to the 
critical reader, it will appear somewhat disconnected 



PREFACE. VU 

and desultory. A large number of books, more or 
less related to the subjects in hand, have been read and 
studied and to their authors, too numerous to name, I 
cheerfully acknowledge my indebtedness. Extensive 
quoting has, however, been avoided and, as a rule, 
limited to the preludes to each chapter and an occasional 
verse, couplet or short extract emphasizing the thought 
to be conveyed. The volume is essentially a new book. 
It is the result of an extended and close study among 
young men. The world as it is, and not the thoughts 
written in books, has been my school. The chief aim 
has been to help young men to think in the right di- 
rection and inspire them with courage to walk and act 
accordingly. If there is a lack of charity at any point 
my pen has proven unfaithful to my desire. 

It is a grave responsibility to send forth a book to be 
read and discussed by young men. The issues of life 
often originate over the printed page. Thousands owe 
their success and perhaps a greater number owe their 
ruin to books. Franklin said of a small volume, read 
when a youth: "If I have been a useful citizen the 
public owes the advantages of it to that little book." 

One of the chapters of this volume was loaned to a 
family and read by one whose fortunes are yet to be 
made. He read it intently and when he had finished 
he stood up and with a countenance seriously set, and 
with a determined emphasis exclaimed: "I will be 
somebody; I am determined to be of some account in 
the world." May it so influence and inspire all who 
read its pages. 



viii PREFACE. 

Every morning in the year, within our nation, 
more than fifteen hundred boys get out of bed and 
romp, play, sing, serve at home, study at school and 
make hilarious and glad city, hamlet and farm. When 
the shades of night settle deep over hill and valley, 
weary, innocent and hopeful of the morrow, they retire. 
They sleep and dream, view fair and enchanting visions 
and live in floating castles. At dawn they awake from 
their slumbers, arise, and, in the light of a new day, 
go forth, not boys or children any longer, but men — 
divinely endow r ed men — to begin anew the things of 
life — to put away childish things — to begin at the foot 
of the hill and aspire to its summit, to learn lessons of 
patience, industry, self-denial and endurance. 

They go out from home into the world to meet and 
mingle with fifteen hundred other men one day older 
than themselves, and with others still older, thus 
forming a mighty legion— twelve million in number — 
all of them young, yet men; all of them men, yet 
young. Together they plod and labor and press up- 
ward and on; some in high and some in humble paths; 
they build homes, they woo and wed and establish fire- 
sides; they sow and reap, endow the race with power 
and clothe the earth in beauty. Some wax strong and 
grow in fame; some struggle in weakness and want; 
some rejoice in success and health; some weep in sor- 
row and misfortune, and not a few fall by the wayside. 

But the period of young manhood is transient. 
Time brings age and age claims all. With hands 
hardened by toil, with fortunes fixed by fate and with 
ranks broken by death, ma?ihood } s morning vanishes 
forever 



PREFACE. IX 

Thus do young men come forth and act their part, 
and borne b}' the flight of time pass on into age, where, 
one by one, as the years roll by, like weary and foot- 
sore travellers, they enter the final rest. As in the 
sleep of another childhood let it be hoped, they will 
rest and slumber, and at the dawn of another day, and 
at the music of another clime, they will awake and, re- 
deemed and glorified arise, and go forth rejoicing, 
clothed in youthful beauty, like unto heaven, and as 
lasting as the sunshine of the eternal morning. 

July, 1896. j. A. C. 



CONTENTS. 



I. Page. 

Twelve million young men i 

II. 

The best years of life. . 13 

III. 

What some young men have done. 33 

IV. 
Wild oats and other weeds. 65 

V. 

Reasons why young men go wrong. 93 

VI. 

Paying the piper. 123 

VII. 
Where young men belong. 151 

VIII. \ 

What young men must be. 177 

IX. 
What young men must do, 203 



Let no man despise thy youth. 

PauL 

"Not in life's ebbing twilight, 

Nor during its noontide glow; 
The best of life is manhoods morning, 

They reap rich harvests who wisely sow." 

"Among the works of man, which human life is rightly em- 
ployed in perfecting and beautifying, the first in importance 
surely is man himself." 

What a piece of work is man? How noble in reason ! how 
infinite in faculty, in form, in moving how express and admir- 
able ! in action how like an angel ! in apprehension how like a 
God! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals 

Shakespeare. 

Manhood in its fresh embodiment — healthful, strong, and 
majestic — and womanhood in its rosy morning — fragrant with 
sweet thoughts and hopes and radiant in its dewy beauty — at- 
tract the love and admiration of all 

/. G. Holland. 

Yield your young heart up cheerfully to the battle of life. 
Calculate upon difficulty; but calculate also upon success; on- 
ly be sure you do it wisely. 

Daniel Wise. 



MANHOOD'S MORNING. 



CHAPTER I. 



twelve million strong. 



The Science of Man is the most difficult branch of 
knowledge to learn, }^et of all the subjects we are called 
upon to investigate and study, it is the most inter- 
esting and important. The subject is so complex and 
comprehensive that he who undertakes to master it is 
apt to become bewildered by what he sees existing be- 
yond the extreme limits of his greatest research. Al- 
though the subject is beyond complete comprehension, 
the fact remains that "The proper study of mankind is 
man." 

There never was a time perhaps, in the whole his- 
tory of the human race, when the lives of men were 
singled out individually and made subjects for study as 
now. Let a man acquire great wealth, become eminent 
in any profession or calling, or achieve greatness or fame 
among his fellow men, and he at once becomes a close- 
ly studied object lesson for the rest of the world. The 
methods of such a man become mottoes and his utter- 
ances become maxims of accepted wisdom to direct and 
inspire others in climbing the difficult but royal road! 
to fame and fortune. Indeed, the secret of success is 
the modern oracle, and he who by wisdom, wit, or gen- 
ius, unfolds it in his life, secures for his name the hom- 
age and admiration of the generations of earth. 



2 manhood's morning. 

The subject of this book is man. The treat- 
ment of so broad a topic however, must of necessity be 
only partial and cannot be considered in its fullest 
sense. In the more modern and improved methods of 
study, when a subject is to be considered, it is divided 
and subdivided into various parts and appropriately clas- 
sified in order to gain specific and definite knowledge, 
and fix the knowledge thus gained, in the mind. In 
this manner the astronomer divides the stars into var- 
ious systems and constellations, and classifies them ac- 
cording to their behavior in the heavens; the botanist 
divides plants into various orders or groups and classi- 
fies them still further according to special characteris- 
tics, in order to make their study both tangible and in- 
teresting. 

So in the study of man, it is essential to divide the 
subject into various classifications in order to bring 
clearly to mind special knowledge, and to learn special 
lessons therefrom. As occasion requires, we select for 
study the different kinds and types of men; the noble 
and the base, the learned and the ignorant, the patri- 
otic and the anarchal, the rich and the poor, the native 
born and the foreign, the thrifty and the shiftless, the 
industrious and the indolent, the upright and the vici- 
ous, and from any of these classes we can learn lessons 
both interesting and profitable. 

In this book, devoted to the study of the subject 
of man, but one distinction will be named, — that of 
age, — and the subject briefly and specifically stated is 

THE YOUNG MEN OF OUR NATION. 

During the past few years a very great deal has 
been said and written about young men, and we have 
been taught to look upon them as comprising a distinct 



TWELVE MIUJON STRONG. 3 

and separate class of individuals. Indeed it is perfect- 
ly proper and natural that they be singled out as a dis- 
tinct group, because in a pre-eminent degree, they pos- 
sess characteristics not applicable to any other class of 
individuals. 

They compose a distinct and separate portion of 
our national greatness. The young men of America 
form a more exclusive and representative class than 
any other equal number of individuals that could pos- 
sibly be selected. 

That there is a period of life known as the age of 
^Young Manhood" none will deny. It is a period 
characterized by special traits of mind and character, 
and fraught with special endowments, opportunities* 
difficulties, temptations and duties. 

The questions arise — and they are important ones 
in this connection — "What is a Young Man?" "When 
does a boy become a Young Man?" and "When does 
a Young Man cease to be a Young Man?" "When does 
"Young Manhood" begin and when does it end?" 
1 'When is a man a man, and when is that man a young 
man?' ' ' 'What are the peculiar ieatures and character- 
istics of this age, and what are the special endowments 
and duties belonging to this period of life?" 

When the above questions are settled, the subject of 
young men deepens in interest and broadens in signifi- 
cance. Their sphere among men and the relation they 
hold towards business and social affairs, towards edu- 
cation, religion and politics and the enterprise and ac- 
tivities of life in general, become subjects for discussion 
and settlement. 

As a rule, a boy begins to be transformed into a 
Young Man at about the age of fourteen years. Oc- 
casionally the transformation begins earlier, but much 
more often somewhat later. Physiologists and medical 



4 manhood's morning. 

writers place it between the twelfth and the eighteenth 
year, but in the vast majority of cases it begins, and 
for all practical purposes it may be considered as be- 
ginning, at the fourteenth birthday. 

At this period many well-marked chants take place, 
involving not only the physical but the intellectual and 
moral natures. These changes are the result of a nat- 
ural development or growth, and they are so gradual 
that the evolution takes place in many instances quite 
unperceived. The voice changes from the thin piping 
tone to the full rich voice of manhood, the body grows 
miore erect, the shoulders broaden and grow more near- 
lly square; the chest expands, the muscles increase in 
•size, firmness and strength; the hair on the head be- 
comes coarser, and the fine downy hairs which cover 
the body begin to grow longer and take on more color; 
the hair on the face begins to show itself, first as a pri- 
mitive mustache, usually of much more interest to the 
owner than to others, and finally a beard appears upon 
the face; the skin becomes coarser in texture, and thick- 
er; the taste regarding dress and personal appearance 
becomes more pronounced, and thus gradually, but in- 
evitably, the boy crosses the threshold of manhood. 
He is no longer a boy. He now enjoys a mental en- 
thusiasm and moral courage unexperienced before. He 
becomes gallant and chivalrous. A new affinity draws 
him to the opposite sex. It becomes natural and \ leas- 
urable to him to associate with and protect ladies; he 
becomes energetic and averse to restraint, he begins to 
think for himself, and to feel that he is surrounded by 
a new environment, actuated by new impulses and sub- 
ject to new laws. He becomes restless, is desirous of 
choosing an avocation, is inclined to render an equiva- 
lent for what he receives and seeks independence in 
thought, will-power and action. There comes to life 



TWELVE MIWJON STRONG. 5 

few moments more joyful and triumphant than that in 
which the heart swells and youth exclaims, 

"Time on my brow hath set it's seal; 
I start to find myself a man." 

He is a new creature, and it is of the greatest impor- 
tance to him to know and realize it. His parents may 
continue to call him a child, the people may call him a 
boy as formerly, the law may call him a minor or an in- 
fant, but God, who made him, through the magic and 
unerring voice of nature, has proclaimed him a man. 

At this period parents realize that a change has taken 
place in their boy, and that he has entered into a new 
life. They begin to loosen restraint and to expect on 
the part of their offspring a self-assertion and desire to 
be and to do something. Their care is turned into a 
pleasurable helper or a burden more pronounced, their 
anticipations into a glad reality or a grave disappoint- 
ment. It is just as natural and as much a sacred duty 
for parents to welcome and recognize the advent of the 
man-life in their sons as it was to anticipate and pre- 
pare for their coming at birth. 

The other extreme — the ending of the period of young 
manhood — is not so well marked, but it is none the lei-s 
real. There are various characteristics peculiar to the 
period of young manhood only, which now disappear. 
These changes are not so closely looked for, nor are 
they so apparent as those which accompany the usher- 
ing in of manhood. They are consequently much less 
discussed. They are not hailed with the same amount 
of expectancy, because the eyes have ceased to look so 
hopefully into the future. The milestone in life's path- 
way w T hich carries into the past the period of young 
manhood, is unwelcomed, unexpected, and as a rule un- 
noticed. It is marked by a partial cessation of certain 



6 manhood's morning. 

pleasant hopeful ideas regarding life, in the place of 
which supervenes a modified conservative spirit, accom- 
panied by an inclination to settle down and enjoy the 
comforts of home; poetry is turned into prose, romance 
is transformed into reality, fancy into fact and experi- 
ment into experience; man begins to see his shadow, 
the joy and the sorrow, the sweet and the bitter of life- 
have become accepted and inevitable verities, and 
whether man is conscious of it or not his fortunes be- 
come fixed by fate. 

At this age most men can truthfully say 

"That year by year, and ray by ray 

Romance's sunlight dies away, 
And long before the hair is gray 

The heart is disenchanted." 

The question arises: — When does this transforma- 
tion from the period of young manhood into that which 
follows take place? When may it be said that a man 
is no longer a "Young Man?" As a rule the change 
takes place between the ages of twenty-five and thirty 
years, and it comes to every one. For all practical pur- 
poses the time may be placed at twenty-eight years of 
acre. Indeed in most instances it takes place not far 
from this time. The changes wrought at this period 
of life may not affect the happiness nor the general 
character of the individual at all. He may live on just 
as light-hearted and joyful as before; his life may be 
filled with sunshine, and fortune may attend his every 
^ootstep, but at an unbidden hour in life, and, as a rule, 
not far from the age of twenty-eighty every man, no 
matter what his condition or experience may be, leaves 
behind him certain definite characteristics, opportun- 
ities and duties and they are gone forever. The trans- 
ition is real and .such an individual is no longer a gen- 
uine young man. 



TWELVE MILLION STRONG. 7 

A definite period — a distinctive epoch of life — is em- 
braced between these years. The Young Men of Am- 
erica, therefore may be considered to be compDsed of 
all male individuals between the ages of fourteen and 
twe?ity- eight years. 

These fourteen years embrace just two links, of sev- 
en years each, in the chain of life — one link before 
reaching the prevailing legal age of twenty- one, and 
one link after the legal majority has been attained. 

According to the Census of 1890, the total population 
of the United States was 62,622,250, and of this num- 
ber 32,067,88 were males. Almost exactly one-third 
of this number or 10,689,293 were young men between 
the ages of fourteen and twenty-eight. According to 
estimates furnished by the Governors of the various 
states on January 1st, 1896 to the New York World the 
present population of our nation is 71, 197,652. Con- 
tinuing the same ratio regarding sex and age that pre- 
vailed in 1890 would give a male population of at least 
thirty-six million. There are therefore at the present 
time in the United States 12,000,000 male children and 
boys under fourteen, 

12,000,000 YOUNG MEN 

between fourteen and twenty eight and 12,000,000 men 
beyond the period of young manhood. 

This vast army of young men, taken as a whole, con- 
stitutes a distinct class of individuals, in many respects 
resembling each other, and in various wavs interested 
in each other to a remarkable degree. Their natural 
sympathies are more uniform and mutual, and their 
business interests and social relations are more closely 
allied than those of any other similar number of indi- 
viduals that now live or perhaps ever did live. While 



8 MANHOOD S MORNING. 

they are scattered throughout the length and breadth 
of three and one-half million square miles of territory, 
their intercourse with each other is mere free, their 
interests and aims are more of a unit, and they are more 
universally in touch, through a common sympathy, 
than is the case with the inhabitants of the most close- 
ly populated city. They are more easily influenced by 
each other, and each in turn is more directly responsible 
for the acts and welfare of his fellows, than can be said 
of any other class of individuals. During this period 
of life, friendship and goodwill are purest and most sin- 
cere, personal magnetism is at its height and the social 
and fraternal ties are now at their strongest. 

Says the eminent Lord Brougham : ' 'At this envi- 
able age, everything has the lively interest of novelty 
and freshness ; attention is perpetually sharpened by 
curiosity; and the memory is tenacious of the deep im- 
pressions it thus receives, to a degree unknown in after 
life.""" 

During these years, opportunity is at its flood, am- 
bition, courage and hope heed naught but conquest and 
victory, care and anxiety are at the ebb; disappointment 
now is only discipline, failures simply stepping stones to 
greater success, and at this time every loyal hearted and 
truly courageous ' 'Young American" should possess 
that kind of determination; valor, and zeal which shirks 
no duty, fears no obstacle, and knows no defeat. 

The twelve million young men of America are a po- 
tent, factor, not only in promoting national advancement, 
but in shaping the world's history. They represent the 
greate.st available power of concerted human force the 
world can produce. Their patriotic loyalty, moral 
worth, and manly strength render our land absolutely 
invulnerable to any and every external foe. 

The latent force represented by these twelve million 



TWELVK MIIXION STRONG. 9 

young men is quite beyond mental comprehension. 
Were they to form in line, marching ten abreast and 
twelve feet apart, they would form one unbroken col- 
umn 2600 miles long. Were they to clasp hands they 
would form two unbroken lines, reaching from the At- 
lantic to the Pacific ocean. If each one built a house, 
of the average size, the buildings would line both sides 
of eight streets reaching actross our continent. They 
represent sufficient labor to dig the iron ore from the 
mines, manufacture it into wire, lay the foundations, 
and construct and complete the great New York and 
Brooklyn Bridge in three hours. 

The great Chinese wall is the unrivalled wonder of 
the world's industry. It is 1259 miles long, 20 feet 
high, 25 feet thick, and contains 20,000 towers 40 feet 
square at the base and 37 feet high. It took hundreds 
of years to build it and it is the most stupendous struc- 
ture erected by man. If laid down in the United States 
it would reach from Niagara Falls to Dallas, Texas, or 
from New Orleans to New York. It would wall our 
Atlantic seaboard from Nova Scotia to Florida; yet 
with the aid of modern machinery, the Young Men of 
America represent enough force to dig the clay from the 
earth, manufacture the bricks and construct the wall 
complete in five days. If they would begin to save 
and place at interest one dollar per week and continue 
to do so until sixty years of age, they would thus ac- 
cumulate a sum surpassing the entire wealth of every 
kind and nature, both personal and real, public and 
private, of the United States at the present time. 

For each one to be sick one day is equal to 30,000 
being sick an entire year. They represent enough la- 
bor to go into the forests and hew the timbers, to go in- 
to the mikes and dig the iron, and manufacture it into 
Steel rails and spikes, and construct a railroad reaching 



IO MANHOOD S MORNING. 

from New York City to San Francisco between the ris- 
ing and the setting of the sun. 

For each one to invest one hundred dollars, would 
capitalize twelve thousand banks, each having a capital 
of one hundred thousand dollars. Two cents daily from 
each would send three hundred thousand young men 
to college. For each one to waste ten cents daily is 
equal to the destruction of three hundred and fifty thous- 
and houses, costing twelve hundred dollars each, an- 
nually, or equal to reducing to ashes a town of five 
thousand inhabitants every day in the year. 

That these twelve million young men represent fully as 
much, intellectually and morally as they do physically, 
is a fact too often overlooked. In every way they re- 
present the dominating factor in our national make-up. 

Perhaps no class of individuals is so little understood 
as young men. Yet no class exhibits qualities more 
natural and uniform. 

Those older in years, under the guise of leadership 
and philanthropy, have spent much time trying to 
solve the problem as to what to do with our young men. 

Young men have been looked upon as a care— as wards 
and dependents — in the realm of business activity and 
progressive civilization. The world is slow to learn, 
and when it is taught is quick to forget, that young 
men are strong in muscle, mind and character, and that 
they, more than any others, are capable of carrying on 
the world's work. Another mistake made is, men in 
general and young men in particular are belittled by a 
low estimate being made of their possibilities. Men 
are the highest expression of the Infinite Mind, and the 
best kind of man is a young man. They may be limit- 
ed in their abilities, as most men are, yet they are not 
on this account in any sense insignificant. Each man, 
however humble in position or limited in powers, is an 



TWELVE MIIXION STRONG. II 

essential part of an important whole. There are stars 
in the heavens which seem of little account, yet if one 
were to fall it would disturb the entire heavens. There 
are men, weak in influence, yet they belong in their 
several places and for them to forsake duty embarrasses 
society as a whole. 

4 'What is really needed' ' says Gladstone "is to light 
up the spirit that is within a young man" * * * 
"There is in every young man the material for good 
work in the world; in every one, not only in those who 
are brilliant, not only those who are quick, but in those 
who are solid, and even those who are dull or seem to 
be dull." 

"Arouse him then; this is thy part; 

Show him the claim; point out the need, 
And nerve his arm and cheer his heart; 
Then stand aside, and say: 'God-speed.' " 

The greatest duties, the most difficult to perform — are 
small duties. The greatest achievements are not those 
historic deeds of greatness which are held up for ad- 
miration, but the small acts that are performed by the 
millions. As the stones for Solomon's Temple were 
hewn and chiseled by men in obscurity, and were 
brought together and piled into the magnificent struct- 
ure without fault or blemish, so it is with the faithful 
toil and loyal lives of men today. The great army of 
America's common people, such as most j^oung men 
are, is the force which hews and chisels the worthy 
deeds which, when taken together, make our history 
noble and our nat : on prosperous. 



Rejoice, O young man; * * * and walk in the ways of 

thine heart, and in the sight of thine eyes. 

Solomon, 

"Young man — go forth in thy strength. • 
Strike out — God will lead the way; 

Why wait for the noontide sun? 
Morning is the best of day." 

It is with men as with plants; from the first fruits they 

bear we learn what may be expected in the future. 

De77iophilus. 

1 'In the lexicon of youth which fate reserves for a bright 
manhood there is no such word as — fail." 

Up, then, with a heroic spirit, and gird yourself for mortal 

conflict with the great Apollyon who bestrides your pathway! 

If he has subdued thousands, thousands have also subdued 

him. And you too may be his conqueror ! 

Wise. 



Why wilt thou defer thy good purpose from day to day ? 

Arise and begin in this very instant, and say, Now is the time 

for doing, now is the time for striving, now is the fit time to 

amend myself. 

Thomas A 1 Kempis. 

"Ye whose cheeks are rosy bright, 

Whose hands are strong, whose hearts are clear. 
Waste not of hope the morning light! 

Ah, fools! why stand ye idle here." 



CHAPTER II. 



THE BEST YEARS OF UFE. 



Throughout all history the period of young manhood 
has been regarded as the most intensely vital part of 
life. Man possesses many natural and important char- 
acteristics at this time, which give him a superior na- 
ture, and which place him at his best. As a rule, all 
the higher attributes which add vigor, force and attract- 
iveness to manhood are now more prominent than at 
any other age. These years — from fourteen to twenty- 
eight — may be justly singled out as the most important, 
eventful and useful years of man's earthly career. 
Writers upon the subject have been inclined to place 
man's best years later in life. Such a theory however, 
will not stand the test of candid judgment and ex- 
perience. With extremely rare exceptions, a man is 
as much of a man, and of far more individual import- 
ance, at twenty years of age than he is at forty. The 
fact that a man has acquired success, social standing, 
or become the father of a family, does not prove that he 
has grown in individual importance or worth. Just 
the opposite is the truth. Such a man at forty 
is not rendering to society and to the community so 
great a service as when he was striving to win and 
merit what he has gained; he is not so much a guardian 
and father to his children now as when the powers 
which gave them existence were within his vitals; his 



14 manhood's morning. 

accumulated wealth is not so much a part of his indi- 
vidual make-up now as it was when it was stored up in 
his muscle, will power and brain. The world can spare 
such a man now a thousand times better than it could 
when he stood the incarnation of all these possibilities, 
at the threshold of manhood. 

In a supreme manner the young men of a nation are 
the trustees of posterity. The twelve million young 
men of America, in a more delicate and real sense, hold 
guardianship over the vast legion of men and women, 
yet unborn, than do the millions of fathers around 
whose knees prattle and play the children of our great 
and populous land. The young men hold posterity 
within their life powers, and are daily moulding the 
character, measuring the success and determining the 
moral and mental capacity of their future offspring. 
They, like magic artists, are shaping the forms and in- 
spiring the countenances, adding graceful curves to the 
outline and brightness to the eyes, and mixing the iden- 
tical colors that shall paint the cheeks of their posterity 
for generations to come. The fathers of the nation 
may do whatsoever they may choose and it matters 
little, but the young men who represent the trans- 
mitting influences which shall some day be transformed 
into men and women of a still more important and ex- 
ceptional age, cannot commit a good or evil deed, or 
even think a good or evil thought, without imparting 
an influence for good or evil as penetrating and as last- 
ing as the forces of kinship and parenthood. 

During this epoch of life, not only are the latent 
forces more profoundly impressionable, but the vital 
and active powers of mind and will are more tense and 
vigorous. The muscle is more agile and elastic, the in- 
tellect more alert and clear, the comprehension more 
unbiased and concentrated, the impulses more unselfish, 



THK BEST YEAKS OF LIFE. 15 

the motives more exalted, the will more invincible, 
the ambition more determined, the forensic powers 
more magnetic, and the friendships and affections more 
sincere. Take him all in all, man wields a greater in- 
fluence over his own nature, over his associates and up- 
on the world at large at this time than at any other 
period of life. 

"Scion of a mighty stock! 
Hands of iron— hearts of oak- 
Craft and subtle treachery, 
Gallant youth! are not for thee." 

According to authentic statistics these fourteen years 
from every standpoint, comprise almost exactly 
the middle third of life. It has already been stated 
that of the 36,000,000 males of our nation the 12,000,- 
000 young men occupy the central place. Again, at 
the age of twenty-one — the centre of this period — the 
population of the nation is divided almost exactly into 
two equal portions, as there are about the same number 
under twenty-one as there are over this age. Twenty- 
one years of age — the centre of this epoch — is also al- 
most exactly the centre of the average duration of life 
of the male population of our nation at the present time. 
Young men between the ages of fourteen and twenty- 
eight therefore represent the central portion — the mid- 
dle third — of our male population. They form the 
central pillar of the three great columns of life — the 
zenith between the rise and decline, between childhood 
and age — the central links in the chain — the keystone in 
the arch — the main stretch in the race. 

The fact that these years form the most useful and 
important epoch in life cannot be too strongly empha- 
sized. Those under fourteen are in the embrace of 
childhood. They think and comprehend only as child- 
ren do, and are concerned in childish things. They 



£6 manhood's morning. 

have not begun to live in the broadest and most signifi- 
cant sense. The life of toiling activity which awaits 
them is so far a hidden mystery. They are dependent 
upon others for food, clothing and shelter, and man- 
hood will be to each of them the evolution of a new 
creature. Those who have passed beyond the age of 
twenty-eight are no longer young men. They have 
undergone a transformation, They have, almost to a 
man, sealed their fate and either solved, or ignored and 
placed beyond reach of solution the great problems of 
life. Their success has been established, or misfortune 
and fixed and settled conditions have become perma- 
nent obstacles to their progress and usefulness. Most 
men over twenty-eight are simply passive and slavish 
followers of previously formed plans and habits and 
permanently wrought circumstances. The future to 
them is simply a continuation of the past, adding a few 
more chapters to a volume plotted and outlined to the 
final page, and the chief portion written. 

Those who have planned wisely and those who have 
planned foolishly, both find the wind and tide going 
their way, carrying the one to success and usefulness, 
the other to failure and despair. 

As years pass by the evil days draw high to most 
men, perhaps to all; wholesome interests and hopeful 
vigor wane, selfishness and conservative habits super- 
vene, and the ideas and energies which once represent- 
ed enterprise and progress, become fossilized and use- 
less debris among the achievements of a new age. 

Into the fourteen years, during which men are young 
and vigorous, the Infinite Mind has irrevocably crowd- 
ed nearly all of the great and important events of life. 
God would not have forced men to work out so many 
of life's problems at this age without giving them ex- 
tra powers and capabilities for effort and accomplish- 



THE BEST YEARS OF LIFE. 1 7 

ment. The laws of the land consider a young man 
simply an infant until he is twenty-one, but nature has 
written a law more inexorable — that manhood's duties 
begin earlier and they cannot be safely delayed. Legions 
of young men are ruined while idling away their time 
waiting for a legal title to manhood. A thousand make 
the mistake of postponing their opportunity to begin, 
where one begins too soon. A timely beginning is im- 
perative in the accomplishment of life's work. 

Unless young men early grasp their opportunity and 
are always prepared to utilize the natural but rapidly 
passing evolution of life's events, they fail in their mis- 
sion and forfeit their usefulness. 

Man, to a remarkable degree, is the architect of his 
own fortune, and during the early years of manhood 
come the best and almost always the only chances 
to plan and construct some of the most difficult por- 
tions of life's w T ork. Man does not grow into greatness 
from something insignificant, like the slow growth of 
an acorn into an overspreading oak — but he builds. 
He plans and constructs himself. He must lay the 
foundation — the most important part — first. He is 
given simply enough material to construct his fortune — 
with none to spare — and he is required to plan the whole 
structure and use the choicest materials at the very 
start. If he makes a mistake his loss is permanent. 
He must build first. Future operations are at best only 
additions to the original design. 

At the very beginning young men must, in order to 
achieve success, choose their occupation — select their life 
work. The day has gone by when a trade or pro- 
fession can be "picked up" and carried to its highest 
success; and the time is rapidly passing when it is pos- 
sible to attain even moderate success unless that calling 
is chosea for which the individual is specially adapted. 



1 8 MANHOODS MORNING. 

Mistakes in selecting a vocation are becoming more 
serious. The curse of our industrial and professional 
systems is misfits — "round men in square holes, and 
square men in round holes/ ' It is as great a sin to 
murder our talent as it is to bury it. "It is an incon- 
trovertible truth, that no man ever made an ill figure 
who understood his own talents, nor a good one who 
mistook them." It is pitiful to see a man who should 
be digging ditches, in the pulpit, but it is a sin for a 
good preacher to spend his life shoveling dirt. God 
made every man for a purpose, } r et a great majority of 
mankind upset the divine plan by thoughtlessly and 
carelessly drifting into some occupation for which they 
possess no talent or adaptation. To trifle as most young 
men do, over such an important matter, is a personal 
disgrace, and results in an enormous accumulation of 
industrial and business shipwrecks. To overlook nat- 
ural adaptation in selecting a calling and to follow that 
for which one is not fitted is downright dishonesty and 
cowardice — it not only buries the talents, but turns 
work into toil and drudgery, and renders the life of the 
offender unnatural and artificial. They only are hap- 
py whose labor and talents harmonize. No one so de- 
moralizes a trade, a profession or a business as the awk- 
ward misfit therein striving to succeed. The impera- 
tive need of the times is a more masterly service, and 
no reform will invite the millennium more surely than 
for every man to study his natural ability and talent 
and wisely follow their leadings. Untrained hands and 
unguided talents are a nuisance to the republic. 
Pauperism and crime are the natural offspring of an idle, 
tradeless manhood. Jails and almshouses swarm with 
lapsed talent and skill. The modern tramp and the le- 
gion of failures along life's highway are simply ex- 
amples of the man who kept his talent in a napkin. 



THE BEST YEARS OF LIFE. 1 9 

Tradeless men have no permanent grasp upon industry; 
the world does not owe them a living and at best they 
are only industrial ballast. Neither education, wealth 
nor religion can atone for neglecting to master a craft 
or business whereby to become useful and self support- 
ing. The chief reason why so many young men fail to 
master some trade or business and why so many who 
do make the effort make a mistake in their choice, is be- 
cause they do not begin early enough. As a rule, un- 
less it is begun before the age of twenty, it is either 
never done at all or done at more or less of a compro- 
mise of the highest possibilities. 

Choosing an occupation is no small matter. It re- 
quires that a young man honestly and intelligently 
measure his own ability and fitness and act according- 
ly. 

It belongs to every young man to know, better than 
any one can tell him, what he would like to do and 
what suits him best. No rules can be written to guide 
him. The world's greatest successes have often defied 
the most plausible advice. There is an inward impell- 
ing force, a calling of God perhaps, to every noble am- 
bition which tends to lead in the right direction, and, 
as a rule, every young man must decide for himself re- 
garding his occupation. 

During these years young men must leave home. To 
leave the parental roof and go out into the world is the 
lot of most young men. The event with its accompany- 
ing experiences is entirely natural and should always 
lead to wholesome results. Garfield said: "Nine times out 
of ten the best thing that can happen to a young man 
is to be thrown overboard and compelled to swim or 
sink for himself." The world is a great school and 
there are lessons which give power to the will, strength 
to the character and fibre and force to the individual 



20 MANHOOD'S morning. 

which can be learned nowhere else. It is the time and 
the place in which God tempers the metal and tests the 
faith of manhood. The best education that can come 
to us is obtained in our early struggles to earn an hon- 
est living — the greater the struggles the more valuable 
and enduring the lessons. There is much wisdom in 
the words of Saxe: — 

"In the struggle fur power, or scramble for pelf, 

Let this be your motto, 'Rely on yourself,' 
For whether the prize be a ribbon or throne, 

The victor is he who can go jt alone." 

Never does a young man so completely hold within 
his grasp his fortunes and destiny as when he first ven- 
tures alone upon the great battle-field of life. As a 
rule the pivotal step which decides between success and 
failure is taken at this time. By being thrown upon 
their own resources young men develop self-confidence, 
industry and independence; they learn to assert their 
own 'rights and to love what is theirs because they earn 
it, they become broad minded and acquire moral cour- 
age and backbone. 

The now famous painting, "Breaking Home Ties " 
by the lamented Thomas Hovenden, which won the 
First Prize at the Chicago World's Fair, represents an 
American boy leaving home to battle for himself. 
"More than a thousand boys like this one go out from 
their homes every day to make homes for themselves, 
to create new conditions, to acquire property, to marry 
well and establish other families, to become good citi- 
zens and valued members of new communities, to de- 
velop that estate of American manhood which is the 
strength of the strongest of nations." Art to such a 
man is a noble thing. "He made his skill preach 
homely lessons, interpret the elemental virtues of hu- 



THE BEST YEARS OF UFE. 21 

inanity and minister to the upbuilding of domestic pu- 
rity and national honor.' ' 

"On many a lip an honored name is heard, 
In many a hall his genius wins the prize; 
A nation's heart is touched to tender joy, 
At the sweet vision, 'Breaking Home Ties.' " 

During these years young men must seek a home of their 
own. While it is allotted to most young men to leave 
the home of their birth, it is their duty to find another. 
Man is a domestic being and his highest happiness is 
enshrined in the home; indeed the stability of our na- 
tion is embodied in the home life of its people. Con- 
tentment seldom if ever permanently forsakes the fire- 
side, and when a young man loses the love of domestic 
joy he forfeits the noblest traits of citizenship. If every 
man in America had a good home — where contentment, 
comfort and felicity abide — we would need little law 
and none to enforce it. Millions of young men are 
without homes. They drift from place to place, from 
job to job, until, divorced from natural affections and 
settled motives in life, they form a national peril rather 
than a tower of strength and protection. Rid of their 
nobler qualities, they roam around like vermin, con- 
suming and destroying the most precious elements of 
our social and national greatness. Discouraged and 
robbed of their natural estate they are driven hither and 
thither, first by booms of industrial prosperity, then by 
waves of discontent. The panacea for national discon- 
tent and business depression is not more money but 
more homes. Nothing can take the place of the family 
fireside, and to none is it so beneficial as to young men. 
They cannot begin too early to plan and build a place 
that shall be to them a home, where all the hallowed 
influences which add comfort, happiness, stability and 
character to life, shall meet and abide. 



22 MANHOOD'S MORNING. 

During this epoch of life young men must get married. 
It is the natural, divinely appointed time for this im- 
portant event. During these years a man is better 
qualified to fall in love and marry than at any other 
time. Affection is never so pure, social ties never so 
strong, and friendship never so sincere as now. The 
greatest bliss that falls from heaven blesses the man 
who brings genuine worth to meet its worthy equal at 
the marriage altar. The highest conceptions of life 
recognize marriage as the unfolding of a divine plan. 
At no time does the guiding hand of our Heavenly Fa- 
ther come nearer than when man and woman, drawn 
together by the wooing of natural adaptation and tender 
affection, pledge their joys and sorrows, and the twain 
are transformed into a hallowed unit. 

Much has been written upon the subject of courtship 
and marriage; indeed, few subjects have been so earn- 
estly discussed. I am not sure that it has done much 
good. Advice, suggestions and admonitions upon 
this subject fall short of their mission. When a young 
man falls in love, as a rule, he is oblivious to the opin- 
ions and advice of others. Wisdom and common- 
sense at this time are not appreciated second-hand, no 
matter from whence they come. Young men in matters 
pertaining to matrimony are self-assertive and indepen- 
dent. In the main this is proper and right. Listen- 
ing to the selfish whims of advisers, and of matrimonial 
wire-pullers, shows a weakness in any young man. 

When a young man seeks a wife, he steps upon 
holy ground and must press his claims alone. Friend- 
ship, be it ever so loyal, can never follow love. Cupid 
has a realm of his own; none but the elect inhabit his 
kingdom and he converses in a language which none 
others can understand. There are millions of young 
men in our land whose weal or woe will be sealed by 



THE BEST YEARS OF UFE. 23 

the marriage vow. Friends cannot help them, parents 
can extend but Httle aid v I cannot help them — they 
must do their own courting and marry their own choice. 

Yet the progress, the happiness, the health and the 
destiny of the world depend upon wise marriages. 
Solomon said : ' 'Every wise woman buildeth her house, ' ' 
and the man who is w r ise marries her and lives in it 
and his life is a triumphant song of peace, joy and 
contentment. 

A good woman with an unworthy husband is to be 
pitied; no less pitiable is a good man with an unworthy 
wife. The wife, more than the husband, is the maker 
or destroyer of not only the happiness but of the suc- 
[/ cess of wedded life. Woman, more than man, is blessed 
with a fund of those endearing qualities which make 
life joyous and beautiful* It is a part of her mission 
to give to the home her felicitous influence. It is the 
very thing man most needs. 

"A perfect woman, nobly planned, 
To warn, to comfort, and command." 

Man is astonishingly influenced by these things; far 
more than people imagine. Domestic happiness or the 
lack of it stamps his career with success or failure. If I 
am a judge, men are more impressionable than women, 
and more husbands than wives, on account of domestic 
infelicity become discouraged, and. stranded upon life's 
pathway, die broken-hearted. The man who marries 
' a good wife does not have to strive half so hard to get 
to heaven as the man who marries a bad wife does to 
keep out of perdition. It is a common expression that 
''When a woman marries it is the last of her," but it is 
often the beginning of the man, and upon nothing does 
national prosperity and universal progress so surely de- 
pend as upon young men thoughtfully, and in proper 
season, -entering into and cultivating all the endear- 



24 manhood's morning. 

ments of the marriage relation. 

He who fails to invoke Divine direction and approval 
and to follow the leadings of his own higher nature in 
the choice of a wife, deals a fatal blow to life's most 
sacred duty and blights forever the most fragrant flower 
that adorns its pathway. 

During these years the strategic opportunities and ex- 
periences — The Crises — of life come and go. That 
1 'there is a tide in the affairs of men which taken at its 
flood leads on to fortune," is a truth almost universally 
accepted. Golden opportunities, no doubt, come to all, 
but they come but once and usually before the time ex- 
pected. Opportunity comes, it is said, in the form of 
youth, with blushing cheeks and flowing locks, but if it 
find its host unprepared, or if it be not warmly wel- 
comed it turns, and exhibiting a bald head, it hurries 
away. It comes in leisurely through the front door and 
if not recognized, in its hurry to leave, jumps out at the 
window. Real good chances of success never stand 
and plead at anybody's door. That so many oppor- 
tunities are allowed to pass by is not because they come 
at the wrong time, but because young men think that 
others will come at a more convenient season. 

To recognize opportunities requires the keen, active 
and helpful faculties of the young, rather than the con- 
servative thoughtfulness and experience of the elderly. 

Youthful ambition^ with its hopefulness and earnest 
zeal, is of infinitely more service in embracing chances 
of success than accumulated knowledge gained by ex- 
perience, be it taught by either past successes or failures. 

Not only must opportunities be quickly caught but 
preparations must be made for them beforehand. ' In- 
deed one of the great secrets of success is to be pre- 
pared always for a good opportunity. There is only 
one secret greater than this — the secret of making the 



THE BEST YEARS OF UFE. 25 

opportunity itself. 

"To catch Dame Fortune's golden smile 
Assiduous wait upon her." 

The vicissitudes of these years are supremely vital 
and important and make or unmake success. Courage, 
sagacity, faith and decision of character are put to 
their severest tests. There are certain times during 
this epoch when questions must be settled which affect 
the entire life, and when a mistake brings a bitterness 
for which there is no remedy. There . occasionally 
comes to almost every young man a supreme hour — a 
crisis — when life's highway seems to divide, and a 
choice must be made that shall shape the destinies not 
only of time but of eternity. Fortunate is the young 
man, who, at such critical moments, can rise to the full 
stature of his manhood, choose the right, trust in God, 
win the victory and triumphantly go forward. One 
thing is usually common in the experiences of the rich 
and the poor, the happy and the miserable, the saved 
and the lost, and that is, the little circumstances back 
in the past which proved stumbling blocks to one and 
stepping stones to the other. Success and failure often 
turn upon very small pivots. There is nothing more 
insignificant in appearance than a golden opportunity, 
and thousands of young men amount to little because 
they fail to grasp their best chance. They waste the 
lucky day, sleep the golden hour, wince at the crucial 
moment — the crisis passes by — and their highest pos- 
sibilities are blighted and stranded forever. 

During this period it is the duty of young men to de- 
come Christians. Nearly all who become useful Chris- 
tians do so in early life. A man is seldom converted af- 
ter twenty-eight; not one in ten between thirty and 
forty; not one in sixty between forty and fifty, and 
not one in three hundred between fifty and sixty. 



26 



manhood's morning. 



More than 75 per cent, of those who are Christians 
*vere converted before the age of twenty-one. The 
Spirit which inclines the minds and hearts of men 
toward God and a religious life rapidly declines in in- 
fluence after the age of manhood is reached. The old 
may be saved, but salvation is specially in behalf of the 
young. The Bible contains scarcely a direct promise 
to an aged and unconverted man, but it is full of prom- 
ise to young men. To a remarkable degree it is a 
book about young men and for young men. Its kings, 
its prophets, its apostles and its heroes were chiefly 
young men. Jesus Christ was a young man. He ex- 
perienced the vicissitudes and trials of life, and was 
tempted of the devil as ypung men only experience 
these things. He learned a trade, waxed strong in 
muscle and mind, won his own reputation among men; 
came in contact with the world, saw its iniquity and 
deception, its hypocris)' and treason in high places as 
young men see these things to-day. Through it all 
he lived a pure and blameless life. He had no ex- 
perience with age, but finished his work while the 
glow of youthful vigor was upon his cheeks. His life 
is pre-eminently a pattern for young men. Nowhere 
is Christian character so attractive and powerful as 
when exemplified in the lives of young men. To 
none does it prove so great a blessing, and to none 
does it give so potent an influence for usefulness. 

Men must establish their habits, morals and character 
during these years. The acts, the desires and motives 
of one day become the habits and principles of the 
next. The lessons of experience are not only now 
being taught, but they must be met and profitably 
applied. Life's battles must be fought, temptations 
overcome, evils conquered, obstacles put aside and en- 
emies overthrown. 






THE BEST YEARS OF UFE. 27 

Timothy Titcomb in his noted Letters to Young 
People, in the opening sentence to young men wrote as 
follows: "I suppose that the first great lesson a young 
man should learn is that he knows nothing; and that 
the earlier and more thoroughly this lesson is learned, 
the better it will be for his peace of mind and success 
in life * * * that intrinsically he is of little value.' * 
A wiser man said "The glory of young men is their 
strength, ' ■ and ' 'To the young man knowledge and dis- 
cretion/ ; The first great lesson for a young man to 
learn, the first fact to realize, is, that he is of some im- 
portance; that upon his wisdom, energy and faithful- 
ness all else depend, and that the world cannot get 
along without him. Prevailing opinions regarding the 
value of young men need revising. Parents, teachers, 
leaders of the people, business men, statesmen and 
rulers need educating upon this question. Parents, 
society and philanthropy try to do the impossible in 
training young men. Parents can train their children 
and heaven blesses the effort with a promise, but if 
they put off this duty until their children are men, the 
effort becomes unseasonable and futile. Young men 
must train themselves. Young men must be trusted 
and encouraged more, and advised and fostered less. 
Young men are strong physically, morally and intel- 
lectually if they are well bred, and they can plan and 
direct and work out their own fortunes better 
than anybody else can do it for them. I^et us learn 
that God has a plan and a purpose in the life of every 
young man and that just as little outside advice and 
help as possible is desired. 

Not only must young men decide the great questions 
of life but they must undergo the trying ordeals en- 
countered during the early career of all undertakings. 
It requires more skill and energy to establish a busi- 



28 manhood's morning. 

rress than it does to manipulate it later on, no matter 
how large it may become. The public puts young 
men on trial. Their workmanship, talents and integ- 
rity are weighed in the balance of popular inspection. 
Their reputation must be formed. They must now 
decide whether they will, as did the youth in ' 'Excel- 
sior,' J face life's difficulties and press on to victory, or 
drift with the tide and wind by following the crowd. 

Each succeeding generation of young men finds the 
duties of life more difficult to perform than their 
fathers did. The world is constantly growing wiser 
and more tensely organized, and each new generation 
of workers must be wiser, more expert and sagacious. 
Young men must not only be more accomplished than 
their fathers are, but more accomplished than their 
fathers ever were. I write this reverently but can- 
didly. In a progressive age, like the present, every 
branch of human activity rapidly improves, and the 
level to which men must aspire — or fail — is constantly 
being raised. The young man who mimics the meth- 
ods of others, treads in the footsteps of his father, or 
* 'waits for the old gentleman's shoes/ ' seldom suc- 
ceeds. 

The work and progress of the world grow more con- 
fusing and dazzling. A revolution is constantly going 
on — a revolution which throws men out of work and 
takes bread out of the mouths of children; that crushes 
the weak and destroys the thoughtless. Each suc- 
ceeding generation of young men belongs to a new 
age, crowded with new conditions and subject to new 
laws and modes of action. It is said that the wisdom 
of Plato was so advanced that it took twenty centuries 
for the world to absorb it. If a Plato lived at the 
present day the world would travel at his heels. Our 
most brilliant thinkers and inventors not only find the 



THK BKST YKA-RS OF LIFE. 29 

people with them, but most of them find it difficult to 
maintain priority in claiming the fruits of their genius. 
It is a fatal delusion for young men to conclude that 
the world owes them a living and that somehow in 
some way it will come to them without its equivalent 
in work which brings into action their brightest facul- 
ties and best energies. 

During these years man is most capable of performing 
heroic deeds and overcoming obstacles. Faith and hope are 
strong and the courage invincible. He neither looks 
backward into the past nor into the future. He lives 
now, and life is a living, present reality. Sickness 
and death are least to be feared, duty and opportunity 
have but one watchword and its keynote is now. The 
beauty and power of manly vigor are now enthroned. 

Young men wield a greater influence upon society, 
politics and religion during these years than do those 
older in years. Their personality is more forensic and 
their sympathies more spontaneous and enduring. 
Wealth, position and authority may wield a power 
more profound, but it is autocratic and lifeless, and 
receives only slavish servitude. The leadership of 
young men, on the other hand, is inspiring and their 
dauntless courage and enthusiasm are an incentive to 
our best energies. Their advent brings new life into 
the channels of enterprise, and by their presence every 
phase of activity is filled with renewed confidence and 
vigor. 

The world needs to be taught that the term "young " 
when applied to man is not intended to narrow and 
limit but to magnify and augment his significance. 
The prefix "young" is the insignia of beauty, strength 
and force. Young men are strong in body, mind and 
spirit. They represent, in the fullest measure, power 
of intellect, of will and of character. They imperson- 



30 manhood's morning. 

ate natural and potent qualities, which experience 
cannot guide and which age will fail to improve. 
Added to their strength are enthusiasm, hope, purity 
and love, and when these attributes are properly de- 
veloped and blended men become capable of the high- 
est duties and noblest aspirations. Now is it possible 
to 

"Wake the strong divinity of soul, 
That conquers chance and fate." 

Young men have been the chief actors — the impelling 
force — in the world's history. In their normal sphere 
they are the proteges of none, the protectors of all. To 
a remarkable degree it is true that young men have 
founded kingdoms, empires and republics, and formu- 
lated laws and systems of government. They have 
championed the world's reforms, fought its battles 
and turned its contests into victories. They have will- 
ingly poured out their blood in the world's conflicts 
and given their lives as a sacrifice upon the altars of 
justice, liberty and truth. They have, through dis- 
coveries and inventions, kept the wheels of progress 
busy and turned the world into a thriving mart of 
commerce. They have penetrated the hidden * do- 
mains and opened up a pathway for human habita- 
tion. They have founded the world's religions, over- 
thrown its superstitions and false teachings and carried 
the lamp of civilization into the dark corners of the 
globe and spread broadcast the truths of Christian en- 
lightenment. 



Neglect not the gift that is in thee t — Paul. 

"The heights by great men reached and kept . 

Were not attained by sudden flight, 
But they, while their companions slept, 

Were toiling upward in the night" 

The crowning fortune of a man is to be born with a bias 
to some pursuit, which finds him in employment and happi- 
ness — Emerson. 

Be what nature intended you for, and you will succeed ; 
be anything else and you will be ten thousand times worse 
than nothing — Sidney Smith. 

"Our ideals become a power upon us for the elevation of 
our life" 

Don't flinch, flounder, fall nor fiddle, but grapple like a 
man. * * * A man who wills it can go anywhere and do 
what he determines to do —John Todd D t D. 

To wish is of little account; to succeed you must earn*> 
estly desire; and this desire must shorten thy sleep —Ovid. 

The longer I live, the more I am certain that the great 
difference between men — between the feeble and the power- 
ful, the great and the insignificant — is energy, invincible detewni* 
nation, a purpose once fixed, and then, death or victory. 

Sir Foxwell Buxton* 

"For the grandest times are before us 

And the world is yet to see 
The noblest worth of this old world 

In the men that are to be— n * v 



CHAPTER III. 



WHAT SOME YOUNG MEN HAVE DONE. 



George Washington, whose name will always 
stand first in our nation's history, sat down and wrote 
out one hundred and ten maxims of civility and good 
behavior for his own personal use when a boy oi 
thirteen. He was busily engaged in surveying the 
wilds of Virginia at eighteen, and was an adjutant - 
general with the rank of major at nineteen. He fired 
the first gun in the French and Indian War of 1754, 
and commanded a regiment against the French before 
he was twenty-two. 

La Fayette, the French general and patriot, was 
not yet twenty when he was appointed a major-general 
by the American Congress, and when he fought the 
battle of Monmouth, for which he received a national 
vote of thanks, he was only twenty-one. When he 
revisited and made a tour of the United States he was 
only twenty-seven. 

Alexander the Great spent his boyhood in dili- 
gently studying under the tutorage of Aristotle and 
other distinguished teachers. He won his first battle 
at eighteen and ascended the throne of Macedon as 
king at twenty. He was at the head of forty thousand 
well disciplined troops, and defeated Darius at twenty- 
two. One year later he almost annihilated the Persian 
army numbering six hundred thousand men. 



34 manhood's morning. 

Hannibal, one of the greatest military commanders 
of any age, swore an eternal hostility to Rome at nine 
years of age, and kept his vow with the strictest fidel- 
ity. He had become the commander-in-chief of the 
army at twenty-six, having displayed extraordinary 
military genius by winning several battles, and had 
completed the subjugation of Spain while in his 
twenties. 

Napoleon began the study of military tactics at 
ten; was a sub-lieutenant at sixteen, and rapidly rose 
in military distinction. He was at the head of the 
army of Italy, and had defeated four of the armies of 
Austria at twenty-eight; he was master of France and 
Europe while yet in his twenties. 

Charles V was one of the most powerful rulers 
and warriors of Europe before he was twenty-five. He 
ascended the throne of Spain at sixteen and at once be- 
came the most powerful ruler of Europe. At twenty 
he was crowned Emperor of Germany. 

Louis XIV ascended the throne at five, declared 
himself of age at thirteen, and his court was the centre 
of art, literature and science before he was twenty-one. 

David Farragut, the noted American Admiral, en- 
tered the navy as a -midshipman when only nine years 
of age, and was a lieutenant at twenty-one. 

Demosthenes and Cicero, the two greatest orators 
of ancieut times, both dedicated their lives to oratory 
during childhood, and by indefatigable effort they both 
achieved a renown as immortal as human language 
while yet in their twenties. At twenty-five Demos- 
thenes was the greatest orator of Greece, and Cicero of 
Rome. 

Daniel Webster, the eminent American orator and 
statesman, was such a sickly child that it was not 
thought that he would live, yet as a boy he had with- 



WHAT SOME YOUNG MEN HAVE DONE. 35 

in him the elements of greatness. One day when he 
was about ten years of age, while sitting with his father 
on a hay-cock under an elm tree on the old New 
Hampshire farm, his father said to him: ' 'Exert your- 
self — improve your opportunities — and when I am gone, 
you will not need to go through the hardships which I 
have undergone. ' ' The ten year old Daniel threw him- 
self upon his father's breast, and as he sobbed aloud, 
he registered a vow, deep in his heart, that he would 
never idle away a moment that could be devoted to 
study. When he went to school he was so shy that it 
was impossible for him to speak pieces, yet by persever- 
ance he conquered his timidity. He had read six books 
of Virgil, and entered Dartmouth College at fifteen. 
He delivered an oration on the Fourth of July to the 
people of Hanover when he was eighteen years of age, 
of which Henry C. Lodge, his biographer said: "The 
enduring work which Mr. Webster did in the world, 
and his meaning and influence in American history, 
are all summed up in that boyish speech at Hanover 
which preached love of country, the grandeur of Am- 
erican nationality, fidelity to the constitution as the bul- 
wark of nationality, and the necessity and the nobility 
of the union of the States.' ' He had won fame as a 
lawyer, statesman and orator while yet in his twenties, 
and his father lived to reap the reward of his paternal 
devotion. 

William Wilberforce, the English philanthropist, 
and champion of freedom, began his anti-slavery efforts 
before he was sixteen years of age, by writing an ar- 
ticle for a paper of York, entitled, In condemnation of 
the odious traffic of hitman flesh. He was a mem- 
ber of Parliament before he was twenty-one. 

William E. Gladstone, the "Grand Old Man" of 
England, was a member of the House of Commons at 



36 manhood's morning. 

twenty-three, and Lord of the Treasury at twenty-six, 
and it was during these early days as much as in later 
3-ears that he immortalized his name as a financier, 
statesman and patriot. 

Thomas Jefferson was enjoying extraordinary suc- 
cess as a lawyer, and was a member of the Virginia 
House of Burgesses at twenty-six. He wrote the De- 
claration of Independence before he was old enough to 
act as President of the new nation it was intended to 
represent. 

Alexander Hamilton, the eminent American 
statesman, when eighteen years of age, and about the 
time Great Britian and the Colonies began to disagree, 
wrote a number of articles in favor of American liberty, 
which were so patriotic and profoundly logical that 
their authorship was attributed to John Jay, who was 
a prominent American statesman and ripe scholar at 
the time. Hamilton was General Washington's aid-de- 
camp and his most trusted and confidential adviser at 
the age of twenty. He served in the Revolutionary 
war as colonel, became one of the most eminent lawyers 
in the State of New York and was a member of the 
Continental Congress at twenty-five; aided by James 
Madison, he took a chief part in drafting the Constitu- 
tion of the United States while yet in his twenties. 

John Tyler, the tenth President of the United States, 
entered William and Mary College at twelve, and grad- 
uated at seventeen; was admitted to the bar at nineteen 
and immediately entered upon a large practice. He 
became a member of the State Legislature at twenty- 
one and entered Congress at twenty-six. 

Augustus Cesar, one of the mighty men of Rome, 
delivered an oration when only twelve years of age. 
He received the toga virilis at sixteen, and his efforts 
are among the most brilliant that history records, and 



WHAT SOME YOUNG MEN HAVE DONE. 37 

all before he was of legal age. 

Wiujam PiTT, the classical scholar and statesman, 
began to prepare himself for the British Parliament 
when nine years of age, and he was a member of that 
body at twenty- two. He was Chancellor of the Ex- 
chequer at twenty-three; Lord of the Treasury and 
Prime Minister at twenty-four; and at twenty-five he 
was practically the ruler of England and was acknowl- 
edged to be, at this time, the greatest master of the 
whole science of parliamentary government that ever 
lived. 

Lord Bacon, the philosopher and Chancellor of 
England, and one of the most profound scholars the 
world has ever produced, began to antagonize the phil- 
osophy of Aristotle when only fifteen years of age. 
During his boyhood, his genius and profound mental 
insight won universal attention. He was appointed 
Consul to the Queen at twenty-eight. 

Pi,ATO, the celebrated Greek philosopher, spent his 
boyhood in writing poetry, but threw his verses in the 
fire and dedicated his life to the study of philosophy at 
twenty. He rapidly became one of the most profound 
thinkers the world has produced. 

Sir Isaac Newton began early in life to make his 
discoveries. When seated in his garden at Woolsthorpe, 
he saw the fall of the apple which resulted in the dis- 
covery of the laws of gravitation, and immortalized his 
name, he was only twenty-three. He had constructed, 
while yet in his teens, a clock that ran by water power; 
a sun-dial which remained for over two centuries on 
the corner of the house in which he lived, and a wind 
grist-mill which was so perfect that it would grind 
wheat into flour. 

Benjamin Frankun, the philosopher and states- 
man, began to write for publication when a boy of four- 



38 manhood's morning. 

teen. He was publisher and editor of a newspaper, 
author of "Poor Richard's Almanac' ' and had founded 
the Philadelphia Public Library before he was twenty- 
six. 

D'Alkmbkrt, the distinguished French mathema- 
tician, published his first Treatise on Dynamics, 
which marked a new era in mechanical philosophy, at 
twenty-five. 

Gauss, one of the world's greatest mathematical 
scholars, devoted his early life to his favorite study 
and at twenty-one, was at work upon the great arith- 
metic which was published two years later and which 
made him famous. 

Pascal, the eminent French philosopher, without 
the aid of books or a teacher, solved various geometric- 
al problems upon the floor of his mother's kitchen with 
a piece of charcoal before he was eight years of age, and 
in this manner had become proficient in geometry at 
twelve. He invented a calculating machine, and es- 
tablished the theory of atmospheric pressure, and pub- 
lished a treatise upon the subject at twenty-five. 

Sir Humphrey Davy, the greatest chemist the world 
has produced, and the discoverer of many of the chem- 
ical elements, began the study of natural philosophy 
when a boy. He made his first experiments in chemis- 
try at nineteen, and discovered the exhilarating effects 
of nitrous oxide, * 'Laughing Gas, ' ' at twenty-one. He 
was appointed Professor in the Royal Institution of 
London at twenty-two, and was the leading chemist of 
the age while yet a young man. He published his 

Essays on Heat and Light at twenty-one; and, in 
the language of Dr. Paris, %< his youth, his natural elo- 
quence, his chemical knowledge, his happy illustrations 
and well conducted experiments, excited universal at- 
tention and unbounded applause" at the age of twenty- 
three. 



WHAT SOME YOUNG MEN HAVE DONE. 39 

Michael Faraday, the distinguished British physi- 
cist, was born the son of a poor blacksmith, but devoted 
his life to study. Hearing Sir Humphrey Davy deliver 
some lectures on chemistry, he turned his attention to- 
ward that science and was chemical assistant in the 
Royal Institute at twenty-two, and rapidly became one 
of the greatest experimental philosophers the world has 
produced. 

Gaui«eo, who gave to the world so many valuable 
discoveries, and whose name was made immortal by the 
invention of the telescope, and who was imprisoned and 
lost his eyesight for saying that the earth revolved, 
spent his boyhood in diligent study and research. He 
was only eighteen years of age when he stood in the 
cathedral of Pisa and noticed how regularly the great 
hanging lamp swung to and fro, and by comparing it 
with the beat of his pulse he decided the accuracy in 
time of its movements, from which he became the in- 
ventor of the clock pendulum. 

Gay-Lussac, one of the most eminent physicists of 
modern times, began his investigations when a boy. 
He published his work on The Dilatation of Gases and 
Vapors at twenty- three, and was chosen by the French 
Institute to test the magnetic force of the atmosphere, 
and made a balloon ascension of more than 23,000 feet, 
at twenty-six. 

Lord Henry Brougham, the British statesman, or- 
ator and scientist, was a brilliant scholar while yet in 
his teens. He published his Refraction and Reflection 
of Light at the age of seventeen, and was one of the 
founders of the Edinburgh Review at twenty- three. 

Linn^us, one of the world's most noted naturalists, 
manifested a profound love for the study of botany when 
a boy. At twenty he was preparing a work on the 

Plants of the Bible and prosecuting the study of med- 



40 MANHOOD'S MORNING. 

icine. He was a successful teacher of botany and had 
published his botanical work, Hortus Uplandicus, at 
twenty-four. 

Professor Agassiz, the eminent and greatly be- 
loved naturalist and scientist, began his favorite studies 
at eleven years of age, and pursued them diligently 
during the remainder of his life. He was recognized 
as one of the most profound scholars of the age while 
yet in his twenties. 

Humboldt, to whom physical science is more in- 
debted than any man of modern times, began his studies 
while yet in his teens. He published his first volume 
at twenty-one, and was famous while yet a young man. 

John J. Audubon, the world's greatest ornitholo- 
gist, began the study of birds when a youth. He was 
born in Louisiana but was studying painting in Paris, 
at the age of fourteen as a student of the celebrated 
painter, David. 

Henry Cavendish, the English naturalist and chem- 
ist, founded the principles of pneumatic chemistry, and 
discovered the element hydrogen while yet in his 
twenties. 

Sir Wiuiam Rowan Hamilton, the eminent math- 
ematician, had learned thirteen different languages at 
thirteen. He had thoroughly mastered all the branches 
of the ordinary university course and was making or- 
iginal investigations in mathematics, philosophy and 
metaphysics at fifteen. He was appointed to the chair 
of Astronomer Royal for Ireland at twenty- two. When 
he entered college as a student he presented an essay 
written in fourteen different languages, and during his 
course at college won every prize open to competition 
both in classics and in science. His discoveries and in- 
vestigations in mathematics and the sciences made him 
famous while yet in his twenties. 



WHAT SOME YOUNG MEN HAVE DONE. 4 1 

Dr. Thomas Young, the English scientist, philoso- 
pher and scholar, began his brilliant career at a very 
early age. He was in the Stapleton Boarding School 
at seven, and had acquired a remarkable knowledge of 
Greek, Latin and mathematics, had learned French and 
Latin without a teacher, and had made considerable 
progress in Arabic, Persic and Hebrew at fourteen. At 
this time a noted educator was employed to instruct 
him, but Young proved to be more learned than his 
teacher. He had not only learned to speak and write 
various Oriental and European languages with great 
ease and fluency, but had gained a profound knowledge 
of botany, zoology, chemistry, music, natural philoso- 
phy and higher mathematics, and was studying medi- 
cine while yet in his teens. It is said of him by Rev. 
W. H. Milburn, (, Hemay be styled, without exagger- 
ation, the most learned, profound,and variously accom- 
plished scholar and man of science that has appeared 
in our age, — perhaps in any age." Helmholtz, the 
eminent scholar and philosopher, said, "I consider 
him the greatest man of science that has appeared in 
the history of this planet' ' * * * ' 'The greatest 
discovery I ever made was the genius and talent of 
Thomas Young/ ' Professor Tyndall regarded him as 
immeasurably above any man that had lived since Sir 
Isaac Newton. While a student on his way to Gottin- 
gen University he visited Erasmus Darwin, who said 
of him, "He unites the scholar with the philosopher, 
and the cultivation of modern arts with the simplicity 
of ancient manners/ ' Although a statute prohibited 
the granting of diplomas, except after six year's study, 
when he entered the College of Physicians, he was in- 
troduced by the head of the institution, Dr. Farmer, as 
capable of occupying any professorship in the college — 
"a pupil capable of reading lectures to his preceptors. 



42 manhood's morning. 

At the same time tie had a profound knowledge of a 
great variety of languages and no less than fifteen of 
the most progressive sciences of the age. His knowl- 
edge of music was such that only one or two instru- 
ments existed that he could not play. He was an ac- 
complished artist and one of the greatest art critics of 
his day. While yet in his twenties he was professor 
of natural philosophy at the Royal Institution, had pub- 
lished his Syllabus on Natural and Experimental Phil- 
osophy, Outlines of Light and Color, Outlines and Ex- 
periments Respecting Sound and Light, Experiments 
and Calculations Relative to Science of Physical Optics, 
and was delivering his remarkable lectures on mechan- 
ics, hydrostatics, hydrodynamics, acoustics and optics, 
astronomy, the theory of the tides, properties of mat- 
ter, cohesion, electricity, magnetism, the theory of 
heat and climatology, forming the most comprehensive 
system of natural philosophy ever published in Eng- 
land. Dr. Young was one of the deepest thinkers and 
most profound scholars the world has produced. His 
motto was: "What others have done, I can do." 

McCormick had conceived in his own mind, and 
constructed with his own hands, a harvesting reaper 
before he was twenty-two. 

Euas HowK gave to the world one of its greatest 
civilizing agents, the sewing machine, when he was a 
young man of twenty-six. 

Bw Whitney, a Yankee school teacher, while yet 
in his twenties, invented the cotton-gin which doubled 
the wealth of the Southern States. Lord Macaulay 
said of Eli Whitney: "What Peter the Great did to 
make Russia dominant, Eli Whitney's invention of the 
cotton-gin has more than equalled in its relation to the 
power and progress of the United States" 

Dr. Thomas Morton gave to the world, at the age 



WHAT SOME YOUNG MEN HAVE DONE. 43 

of twenty-six, what has proven to be one of the greatest 
blessings bestowed upon mankind — the discovery of 
the use of ether as an anaesthetic to relieve pain during 
surgical operations. 

Thomas A, Edison, the greatest living genius, at 
the age of twenty-three, ' 'penniless, friendless and hun- 
gry" made his first discovery in telegraphy, and in a 
very short time he was employing hundreds of men to 
construct the conceptions of his remarkable mind. 
The Commissioner of Patents styled him ' 'the young 
man who keeps the path to the Patent Office hot with his 
footsteps." He was acknowledged to be a modern in- 
tellectual wonder while yet a young man. 

Robert Fulton, the inventor of steam navigation, 
constructed paddle-wheels to a fishing boat that turned 
with a crank, at fourteen. He was apprenticed to a 
jeweler when a boy, but by selling pictures which he 
painted at odd hours he bought a farm for his mot her 
and was in Europe studying art and earning his own 
way at twenty-one. 

John Ericsson, the distinguished engineer and in- 
ventor, had made numerous drawings and mechanical 
contrivances, showing remarkable inventive genius, 
before he was eleven years of age. Among other 
things he had constructed a miniature saw-mill with 
his own hands and by his own plans. At eleven years of 
age he was appointed leveler at the grand Swedish ca- 
nal then being constructed, and at fourteen he was ap- 
pointed to set out a section, employing six hundred 
men. c He invented a copper plate engraving machine 
at twenty, and a condensing flame engine at twenty-two. 
These were followed by an instrument for sea sound- 
ing; a hydrostatic weighing machine, a number of im- 
provements in tubular boilers, an artificial draft by cen- 
trifugal fan blowers, and a self-acting gun lock. His 



44 manhood's morning. 

celebrated steam-carriage, which made thirty miles an 
hour and which contained four important features of the 
modern locomotive, was built by him when he was 
only twenty-six. 

George Stevenson, the inventor of the locomotive, 
began to apply himself diligently to the study of steam 
engines when a boy of fifteen, and the history of his 
early years is a rare record of the complete victory of 
patience and perseverance over poverty and embarrass- 
ments. 

SamueI Colt invented the revolver which bears his 
name, at twenty-one. 

James Watt, the Scotch mechanic, scientist and en- 
gineer, who, more than anyone else deserves the hon- 
or of inventing the steam engine, had become such an 
expert, that at twenty-one he was appointed mathemati- 
cal instrument maker to the University of Glasgow. 
He had begun his investigations into the power and 
capabilities of steam as a motive force before he was 
twenty-three, and at twenty-seven, he was working in 
earnest upon his wonderful improvements of the steam 
engine. Watt was regarded by the poet Wordsworth 
as ■ 'perhaps the most extraordinary man Scotland ever 
produced.' ' 

Samuel Compton, of Lancashire, England, to whom 
woman owes an everlasting debt of gratitude for in- 
venting the spinning machine, began to sit up nights 
at the age of twenty-one to construct the machine that 
was already in his mind, and for years he labored upon 
it while others slept, and gave it to the world when he 
was twenty-six. 

Edward Gibbon, the English historian, and, in some 
respects, the most brilliant recorder of events the world 
has produced, began his studies, which resulted in his 
unrivaled historical works, at the age of seventeen, 



WHAT SOME YOUNG MEN HAVE DONE. 45 

and his writings, exhibiting all the characteristics of a 
mature and profound scholar, began to be published 
when he was only twenty-four. 

Muu,ER, the eminent Swiss historian, was Professor 
of Greek at twenty, and wrote his first work, Belhim 
Cimbricum; at this time. He delivered his celebrated 
lectures on Universal History, afterward published in 
24 volumes, at twenty -six. 

George Bancroft, the eminent American states- 
man and historian, entered Harvard College at thirteen, 
was made Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Got t- 
ingen at twenty, and three years later began to collect 
material for his wonderful masterpiece — Bancroft' $ 
History of the United States. 

Josephus, the famous Jewish historian, was recog- 
nized as an authority upon the subject of Jewish law 
at the age of fourteen. He became a Pharisee at nine- 
teen, and at twenty- six went to Rome and succeeded 
in obtaining the release of a number of prisoners who 
had been incarcerated by Felix, the same that had 
"trembled" before the eloquence of the Apostle Paul. 

Neander, the celebrated ecclesiastical historian of 
Germany, was a profound student of theology at ten 
years of age, and was Professor Extraordinary in the 
Heidelberg University at twenty-three. 

Edward Everett, the American patriot, orator and 
scholar, entered Harvard College at the age of thirteen; 
graduated with the highest honors at seventeen; was 
Professor of the Greek language and Literature in his. 
Alma Mater, and one of the most eloquent and forceful 
speakers in the United States at the age of twenty. 

Washington Irving, the American author and 
humorist, was a classical scholar and had travelled 
through many foreign countries and been admitted to 
the bar at twenty- three. He published Salmagun- 



46 manhood's morning, 

di at twenty-four, and his History of New York, by 
Diedrich Knickerbocker, which proved to be one of the 
most popular books of the language, was published at 
the age of twenty-six. 

Victor Hugo, one of the leading poets and novel- 
ists of modern times, was busy with his pen while yet 
in his teens. He published his Odes and Ballads at 
twenty, and he became famous while young in years. 
He was the prime mover in the literary revolution be- 
fore he was twenty-eight. 

John Ruskin, one of the literary lights of the present 
century, was a graduate of Oxford, had won the New- 
digate prize by writing poetry, had begun his inde- 
pendent studies in theology and architecture, was a 
recognized authority on the latter subject, had travelled 
extensively in England and on the Continent and had 
written his famous Modern Painters, at twenty-four. 

Euhu BuRRETT, the "learned blacksmith,' ' of New 
Britain, Connecticut, ' 'sat down night after night, with 
aching limbs and barnacled hands/ ' and, by patient 
application, mastered fifty different languages before 
he was twenty-seven. 

Bayard Taylor, the American traveler, poet and 
writer, was studying Latin, French and Spanish at 
fourteen; was teaching at fifteen. At sixteen he wrote 
in his Diary: "I, a humble pedagogue, might by un- 
remitted and arduous intellectual and moral exertion 
become a light, a star, among the names of my country. 
May it be!" He began his public literary career at 
seventeen. His first book was published when he was 
nineteen. He was traveling through Europe on foot 
at twenty, published his Views A-foot at twenty- 
one, and was editor of the New York Tribune at twenty - 
four. 

Rufus Choatk, America's greatest jurist, whose 



WHAT SOME YOUNG MEN HAVE DONE. 47 

name will ever be the synonym of a ' 'thorough 
patriot, an accomplished and profound scholar, and a 
gentleman of fascinating manners, of a most affection- 
ate temper and of unsullied honor/ ' had exhausted the 
town library of Essex, near where he lived, at the age 
of ten. 

John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, practically 
began his life's work when a boy of eleven, by his 
systematic study at the Charterhouse School in London. 
At sixteen he was in Christ's Church College, Oxford, 
and soon became an exceptionally brilliant classical 
scholar. It was while at college that he and his 
brother, Charles Wesley, formed the Holy Club, 
the members of which designated Methodists, proved 
to be the germ of one of the most powerful religious 
movements in the world's history. He was a polished 
writer and a skillful and thoughtful logician at twenty- 
three, and was Professor of Greek at twenty-four. 

George Fox, the originator of the Society of Friends, 
known as * 'Quakers," conceived the ideas upon which 
their religion is based at the age of twenty-two, and 
began to organize and proselytize at twenty-six. 

Confucius, the Chinese philosopher, spent his boy- 
hood in diligent study and research, and married at 
nineteen. He was superintending public affairs at 
twenty. He began his theological teachings, which 
have shaped the religious belief of nearly one third of 
the human race for over twenty-three centuries, when 
he was a young man of twenty-two. 

Martin Luther, the leader of the Reformation, 
spent his early years in diligent study, and was a Pro- 
fessor of Philosophy at twenty-five. When he ascended 
the Scala Santa in Rome on his knees and heard the 
inward voice, "The just shall live by faith/ ' he was 
only twenty- seven. 

Phiup Mei,anchthon, Martin Luther's fellow 



45 MANHOOD'S 1KORNI27G. 

laborer in the Reformation, graduated from the Uni- 
versity of Heidelberg at fifteen and from Tiibingen at 
seventeen; had published a grammar and was Professor 
of Greek at Wittenberg at twenty-one. He published 
the first great Protestant work on dogmatic theology at 
the age of twenty-four, and so popular did it become 
that it passed through fifty editions during the author's 
lifetime. 

John Calvin, the founder of Presbyterlanlsm, was 
appointed to a benefice in the Cathedral of his native 
town at twelve years of age, and was given a pastoral 
care at seventeen. He became deeply absorbed in the 
study of law, theology and the languages while in his 
teens, at the same time teaching and preaching. He 
began to teach the doctrines which form the basis of 
the Presbyterian belief early in his twenties; his sermons 
were publicly burned at twenty-three, and he published 
his famous Institutes of the Christian Religion at 
twenty-seven. 

George Whitefiei,d, the eminent preacher and 
founder of "Calvinistic Methodism/' was a boot- black, 
but began to write sermons during his boyhood and at 
twenty-one was one of the most powerful and popular 
pulpit orators the world has produced. 

Jeremy Taylor, one of the greatest names in the 
English Church, was the son of a barber; entered 
college at thirteen and at eighteen was preaching in St. 
Paul's Cathedral in London to large and spellbound 
audiences. 

Dwight L. Moody, when sleeping in the gallery of 
a Boston church, was punched in the ribs by an old 
gentleman and told to ' 'listen to the sermon," was 
seventeen. He was thoroughly awake and trying to 
preach at eighteen. He had become one of the most 
successful evangelists of the century while yet in his 



WHAT SOME YOUNG MEN HAVE DONE. 49 

twenties. 

Charges H. Spurgeon, the famous pulpit orator, 
was preaching at sixteen, c He rapidly won fame as 
the ''Boy Preacher' ' and he began to preach in the 
great London Tabernacle at twenty. 

Rev. F. E. Clark was yet In his twenties when he 
founded the Young People's Society of Christian En- 
deavor, which now encircles the globe and has over 
forty-two thousand societies and two and one-half 
million members. 

George Williams, the English dry goods clerk, 
founded the Young Men's Christian Association at the 
age of twenty-three. 

William Cullen Bryant was translating Latin 
poems into English at ten years of age. He composed 

The Spa?iish Revolution and the Embargo at 
thirteen, and his celebrated Thanatopsis at eighteen. 

Alfred Tennyson, late poet laureate of Great 
Britain, published his first verses at eighteen. He won 
the Chancellor's medal at Cambridge University at 
twenty, and a volume of poems of his own composing 
was published during the same year. 

Robert Southey, the poet laureate of England, be- 
gan to write verses when a mere boy and was famous 
at eighteen. He was poet, scholar, antiquary, critic 
and historian, and was a more prolific writer than Sir 
Walter Scott. He is said to have burned more verses 
before he was thirty than he published during his 
whole life. 

John Milton, author of Paradise Lost composed 
that exquisite poem, Lines to a Fair Infant, at 
seventeen, and his Hymn on the Nativity, the grandest 
religious lyric poem in any language, at twenty-one. 

Dante, the illustrious Italian poet, claimed to have 
received his poetic inspiration at nine years of age. In 



So manhood's morning. 

early life he became versed in philosophy, theology 
and Latin, and skillful in painting, music and other 
arts; he composed his celebrated Vita Nuova at twenty- 
five. 

John Greenleaf Whittier worked on a farm and 
at shoemaking until he was eighteen, but by close ap- 
plication to study he became editor of The American 
Manufacture}" at twenty-two, and of the New Eng- 
land Review at twenty- three, and rapidly won dis- 
tinction and affection. 

IyONGFELLOW entered Bowdoin College at fourteen, 
and at this time began his poetical career. He was 
appointed Professor of Modern Languages and Litera- 
ture at nineteen, and he was in the front rank of the 
great living poets at the age of twenty-six. 

Edgar Aixan Poe published his first volume of 
poems at twenty. 

James Montgomery, the Scottish poet, began to 
write poems when he was ten years of age and had 
composed three volumes when he was only twelve. 

Alexander Petofi, the national poet of Hungary, 
at the age of twenty-one walked from his home to the 
city of Pesth, a distance of nearly two hundred miles, 
wearing shoes padded with straw, carrying the manu- 
script of a volume of poems in his bosom and two 
borrowed florins in his pocket. Within a few weeks 
he was surrounded by friends and fortune, and his 
verses were in wonderful demand. During his life- 
time he composed 1775 poems, most of them being 
written while he was a young man. 

Thomas Moore, the Irish poet, began to write for 
the magazines at fourteen and composed his first 
volume of poems while yet in his teens. 

Joseph Addison, the poet and greatest of English 
essayists, distinguished himself in Latin verse at six- 



WHAT SOME YOUNG MEN HAVE DONE. 5C 

teen and was receiving a pension from the pi^blic treas- 
ury for his poetical productions at twenty-three. 

Robert Burns was a literary genius at twelve years 
of age, and a gifted poet at sixteen. 

Lord Byron published his first volume of poems 
while yet in his teens and was recognized as one of the 
most gifted and brilliant poets of the times and was a 
member of the House of Lords before he was twenty- 
five. 

Thomas Gray began his Elegy Written in a Coun- 
try Church Yard, — considered by many as the most 
finished poem in the English language — at the age of 
twenty-six. 

Thomas Campbeu,, the eminent Scottish poet, was 
a distinguished classical scholar while yet in his teens 
and published The Pleasures of Hope, the best poem 
lie ever wrote, at twenty-two. 

Junius Brutus Booth, the great English actor, was 
upon the stage when seventeen years old, and he was 
one of the most famous tragedians of the times at 
twenty- one. 

Edwin Booth, who has done more than any other 
man to raise the moral tone of modern dramatic art, 
went upon the stage when a mere boy and was playing 
Richard HI at sixteen. 

Sheridan, the Irish dramatist and orator, was pro- 
nounced a dunce when a boy at school by his teacher, 
and gave no evidence of talent, but he awoke from his 
mental stupidity and produced his famous comedy, 

The Rivals, at twenty-four, and his still more 
famous production, The School for Scandal, was per- 
formed in Drury Lane Theatre when he was only 
twenty-six. 

Beethoven, the great composer, whose influence 
wrought a new epoch in music, created astonishment 



52 manhood's morning. 

by his performance upon the violin at eight years of 
age. He played the music in Bach's Wohltemperirtes 
Klavier at eleven, and published a volume of songs 
and sonatas of his own composing in his thirteenth 
year. His fame was world-wide while he was yet in 
his teens. 

Mozart, the immortal musician, played the clavi- 
chord at four years of age and composed a number of 
minuets and other pieces, still extant. His talents 
were remarkably brilliant at seven, and he took part at 
sight in a trio of stringed instruments and gave con- 
certs with great success in London and Paris. His 
achievements and fame increased with remarkable 
rapidity, so that at the age of thirteen years the en- 
thusiasm and honor given him were without a parallel 
in the world's history. 

Handed was composing a cantata in eight parts 
every week when he was only eight years of age and 
he produced his great opera, Almira, before he was 
twenty. Handel is considered by many as the greatest 
composer the world has produced, and his fame was 
gained during his early life. 

Mendelssohn was both brilliant and famous at ten 
years of age, and had given public concerts in Berlin 
and Paris. He began to compose music for the piano, 
violin and other instruments at ten, and published a 
volume of his productions at fifteen. He composed his 
Midsummer Night's Dream at eighteen and was 
the idol of all civilization while yet in his teens. He 
performed his famous oratorio, Paalus at twenty- 
six. 

George Morgan, for many years organist at the 
Brooklyn Tabernacle, was a good pianist at five; he 
pJayed the entire service in St. Nicholas' Church, 
Gloucester, England, at eight; performed in the Cathe- 



WHAT SOME YOUNG MEN HAVE DONE. 53 

dral at twelve, and led the boys' choir in the same edi- 
fice from his fourteenth to his twentieth year. 

Weber, the celebrated composer, began to publish 
his famous operas at thirteen, and was conductor of the 
opera at Breslau, and had gained a great reputation 
for his talents at the age of eighteen. 

Rossini, the greatest lyrical composer of the present 
century, spent his boyhood studying the Italian and 
German masters. His Tancredi which made such 
a wonderful sensation appeared at twenty- three and his 
masterpiece, II Barbiere di Seviglia, was composed 
before he was twenty-six. 

Haydn, the noted German composer, was born in 
great poverty; he became a member of the choir of St. 
Stephens, Vienna, at eight and was one of the lead- 
ing musicians of his time while yet a young man. 

Theodore Thomas, the eminent American musician 
began to play the violin in public at ten, and had won 
a wide reputation as a musician and was leader of his 
orchestra, that has enjoyed such great popularity, at 
twenty -six. 

Rubinstein, the celebrated pianist, began to appear 
in public concerts at eight and from that time forward 
his career was attended by a constant ovation. 

Liszt, whose reputation as a pianist is unexcelled, 
began to play the piano when three years of age. He 
was a student of music at six; he was starring through 
Russia with great success at sixteen, and was professor 
in the Strasburg Conservatory of music at twenty- 
three. 

Gustave Dore, the celebrated French artist, began 
to make sketches for the journals when a mere boy; 
he showed remarkable ability while in his teens. He 
exhibited his painting, Battle of Alma, when 
twenty-three, and quite a number of his masterpieces 



54 manhood's morning. 

before he was twenty-six. 

Benjamin West, the famous American painter, 
began to paint pictures when six years of age. He 
was not encouraged in the art by his parents, but he 
made colors out of berries and leaves, and brushes out 
of a cat's tail; and with this crude outfit attracted great 
attention by his skill. He painted a water-color picture 
at nine, which he claimed in after life, that in some 
respects, he never excelled. When his great painting, 
Christ Healing the Sick, was exhibited in the 
Royal Academy in London, this little picture was hung 
beside it. In his sixteenth year he painted one of his 
masterpieces, Death of Socrates, 

Millais, the notable English painter, gained the 
first prize at the Society of Arts when only nine, and 
won the principal prizes at the Royal Academy when 
only eleven. He had completed his celebrated paint- 
ings, The Widow' "s Mite and the Tribe of Benjamin 
Seizing the Daughters of Shiloh } before he was 
eighteen. 

Michael Angelo, one of the greatest painters, 
sculptors and architects that the world has produced, 
began to show remarkable skill at an early age, and 
his paintings while yet a young man brought forth a 
new era in the art. He carved his celebrated colossal 
statue of David at twenty-two. 

Raphael, the illustrious Italian artist, was an ac- 
complished painter at fifteen; had completed his famous 
painting, The Espousals at twenty. He entered the 
Vatican at twenty-five, where some of his frescoes and 
other paintings remain as monuments to his remark- 
able genius. 

Bernini, the famous Italian sculptor, painter and 
architect, began early to use the chisel; he had com- 
pleted his much admired group, Apollo and Daphne ', 



WHAT SOME YOUNG MEN HAVE DONE. 55 

and gained renown at eighteen. 

David Livingstone, the famous African explorer 
and medical missionary, was born poor and placed 
in a cotton factory to learn spinning at ten. He bought 
Ruddiman's Rudiments of Latin with his first week's 
wages, and sat up nights until midnight and later to 
study, and thus acquired a knowledge of several lan- 
guages, botany and theology, and graduated in medi- 
cine, and was exploring the "Dark Continent" at 
twenty-three. 

Henry M. Stanley was a teacher in an almshouse 
at thirteen, and had crossed the ocean as a sailor at fifteen. 
He had fought on both sides in the civil war, travelled 
over a large portion of the globe, was a famous news- 
paper correspondent and was on his way to Africa to 
find Livingstone while yet in his twenties. 

Lord Macaulay acquired a brilliant reputation as 
a scholar and debater, and had won various prizes with 
his pen while in his teens. He early began to publish 
his writings, and his famous essay on Milton, "The 
learning, eloquence, patriotism, brilliancy of fancy, 
and generous enthusiasm" of which surprised and 
fascinated the public, appeared at twenty-five. 

Lord Lytton published his first work, Falkland, 
at twenty-two and he was famous while yet in his 
twenties. 

Benjamin Disraeli, the British author and states- 
man, began to write for the press when a youth and 
gave to the world his first novel, Vivian Grey, at 
twenty- two. 

Charles Dickens began to write for publication at 
a very early age. His Sketches by Boz, appeared 
when he was twenty-four and his Pickwick Papers 
and Oliver Twist while he was yet in his twenties 

William Lloyd Garrison began to write articles 



56 manhood's morning. 

for the press at seventeen and was editing the Herald 
at nineteen. It was the struggles of these boyhood 
days of Garrison to which IyOwell alluded when he 
said: — 

"In a small chamber, friendless and unseen, 
Toiled o'er his types one poor unlearned young man; 

The place was dark, ungarnitured and mean;— 
Yet there the freedom of a race began." 

He was in jail for writing anti-slavery articles at 
twenty-five and was the victim of a mob in the streets 
of Boston for the same offence while yet in his twenties. 

Wendeu, Philips, the eminent statesman and 
orator, dedicated his life to the cause of justice and 
truth in his childhood. Referring to the matter just 
before he died, he said to a friend: "When I was a boy 
fourteen years of age I heard Dr. Lyman Beecher 
preach on the theme, 'You belong to God.' I went 
home, threw myself upon the floor in my room, with 
locked doors, and prayed, 'O God, I belong to Thee; 
take what is thine own.' From that day to this it has 
been so. Whenever I have known a thing to be 
wrong, it has held no temptation. Whenever I have 
known a thing to be right, it has taken no courage to 
do it." Mr. Phillips was only twenty-six on that 
memorable occasion when he, amidst the intense excite- 
ment and threatening mob in Faneuil Hall, climbed 
upon the platform, and in answer to the unpatriotic and 
despotic speech of James Tricothic Austin, Attorney- 
General of Massachusetts, said, "* * Sir. when I heard 
the gentleman lay down principles which place the 
murderers of Alton side by side with Otis and Hancock, 
with Quincy and Adams, I thought those pictured lips 
(pointing to the portraits in the hall) T^ould have 
broken into voice to rebuke the recreant American — 
the slanderer of the dead! * * * For sentiments he 
has uttered, on soil consecrated by the prayers of the 






WHAT SOME YOUNG MEN HAVE DONE. 57 

puritans and the blood of patriots, the earth should 
have yawned and swallowed him up." 

Theodore Parker, the eminent theologian and 
scholar, was teaching school at seventeen, and a few 
years later he was supporting himself in Harvard 
College by teaching private classes and schools, and 
applying his spare moments to the study of meta- 
physics, theology, Anglo-Saxon, Syriac, Arabic, 
Danish, Swedish, German, French, Spanish and 
modern Greek. He was one of the leading thinkers of 
the nation and editor of the Scriptural Interpreter 
at twenty-six. 

Jonathan PerEira, one of the most learned phar- 
macologists of any age, began his life work when a 
boy and published a translation of the London Phar- 
macopoeia at twenty. 

Dr. SAMUEt Johnson, the scholar, critic, poet and 
lexicographer, was born in poverty and was frail in 
body, but kept a diary from his early childhood and in 
October, 17 19, when he was ten years of age, he wrote 
in it the following; il Desic tixe valedixi; sirenis istius 
cantibus surdam posthac auvem obversurus/'—I have 

BIDDEN FAREWELL TO SLOTH AND INTEND HENCE- 
FORTH TO TURN A DEAF EAR TO THE STRAINS OF THAT 

siren.' ' He was in the full tide of his literary career 
while in his twenties. 

John Tyndaix, the eminent scientist, chemist and 
scholar, was employed in a surveyor's office during his 
early boyhood. One day a fellow workman noticing 
bis ability to learn advised him to devote his spare 
hours to study. The next morning John Tyndall, 
then not over twelve years of age, was out of bed and 
at his books before five o'clock, and for twelve years 
afterward he never swerved from the practice. 

Goethe, the illustrious German author, could write 



58 manhood's morning. 

in Greek, I,atin, French and other languages at nine. 
He composed his poem, Joseph and his Brethren, at 
twelve. His published writings began to appear while 
he was yet in his teens. His romance, Sorrows of 
Young Werther, was published before its author was 
twenty-five. It has been said of this work, "Perhaps 
there never was a fiction which so startled and en- 
raptured the world; in Germany it became a people's 
book hawked about the streets; it was the companion 
of Napoleon in Egypt, and in the Chinese Empire 
Charlotte and Werther were modelled in porcelain." 

John Jacob Astor, the famous millionaire, was 
born in Germany but had emigrated and was in busi- 
ness in New York at nineteen. He had accumulated 
two hundred thousand dollars, an immense fortune in 
those days, at twenty-six. 

Commodore Vanderbii/t was born poor but had 
established a ferry across the East River at seventeen, 
and at twenty-three had saved nine thousand dollars, 
a large sum at that time. 

Jay Goui<d was keeping books for a blacksmith at 
night to pay his way at school during the day, at four- 
teen; at fifteen he was working from six a. m. till tea 
p. m. in a store, and rising at three o'clock in the 
morning and studying surveying and mathematics far 
the three hours before business hours. He was sur- 
veyor and author before he was twenty-one; a tanner, 
a large lumber dealer, business man and capitalist be- 
fore he was twenty-five. 

_.' Stephen Girard was a sailor, sea captain and 
successful merchant before he was twenty-six. 

P. T. Barnum, the celebrated showman, was clerk- 
ing at thirteen; was in business at eighteen, editor of 
the Herald of Freedom at nineteen, and was making 
fifteen hundred dollars per week exhibiting Joyce Heth, 



WHAT SOME YOUNG MEN HAVE DONE. 59 

nurse of General Washington, the "greatest show on 
earth," when he was twenty-four. 

Horace Greeley, the founder of the New York 
Tribune, could read anything at four; had read the 
Bible through and could spell any word in the English 
language at six. He decided at eleven to be a printer 
and apprenticed himself at fourteen; was a publisher 
at twenty-two, and although his uncouth manner and 
ugliness were a great hindrance to his progress, he was 
famous as a literary genius while yet in his twenties. 

Henry Watterson, the noted writer and newspaper 
editor, had learned the printing business and was an 
editor at eighteen, and was one of the famous news- 
paper men of America at twenty-eight. 

George W. Chiuds, the eminent American philan- 
thropist, left home to seek his fortune and was in the 
United States navy at thirteen. He was born poor 
but he was rich in industry and perseverance, and was 
clerking in a Philadelphia book store for two and a 
half dollars a week and saving part of his income at 
fourteen. He displayed a remarkable aptitude for 
business and liberality even as a child, and had ac- 
cumulated a fortune at twenty-five. 

Solomon, "the wisest ruler that ever lived or ever 
will live," ascended the throne at eighteen. "The 
wisdom of God was in him to do judgment/ ' and he 
began to build his great temple at twenty, and it was 
finished while he was yet in his twenties. Of the nine- 
teen kings that followed the reign of Solomon the ages 
of seventeen, at the time they ascended the throne, are 
given. Of seventeen, sixteen were young men. 

David, the king, psalmist and sweet singer of 
Israel, had seven brothers older than himself, yet he 
was chosen in preference to them all to sit upon the 
throne. When he stood up to be anointed, he was a 



60 manhood's morning 

mere youth, "ruddy and withal of a beautiful counte- 
nance and goodly to look to. ' ' Although called from 
the tending of sheep to the throne of Israel at the age 
of twenty — too young to be president, senator, congress- 
man, legislator, or even to vote in America — his 
reign furnishes the most brilliant example of 
elevated character in a ruler that the world has pro- 
duced. 

Saui,, the first king of Israel, and God's own anoint- 
ed, was selected because he was a powerful and choice 
young man, and when he was seated upon the throne, 
from hearts that "God had touched" went forth the 
prayer, "God save the king" for the first time in 
human history. 

Moses, the lawgiver and sacred historian, was "ex- 
ceeding fair* ' at a very early age and was learned in 
all the wisdom of the Egyptians and was mighty in 
words and in deeds while yet a young man. 

Joseph was sold by his brethren to the Ishmaelites 
for twenty pieces of silver at seventeen. In the house 
of the Pharaohs he rapidly grew in wisdom and influence, 
and was "ruler over all the land" and Grand Vizier of 
Egypt while yet in his twenties. 

Samuel, the prophet and judge, was clothed with 
an ephod and a mantle and served in the temple when 
a mere boy. When he stood before Eli, the High 
Priest, and foretold the doom that was to come upon 
him and his sons, he was only twenty. "All Israel, 
from Dan even to Beer-sheba, knew that Samuel was 
established to be a prophet," while he was yet a mere 
youth. 

Daniel, the prophet and courageous court minister 
of Babylon, began his life's work while a mere boy. By 
prudent conduct, personal honor and wisdom, he was 
made 4 'ruler of the whole province of Babylon," and 



WHAT SOME) YOUNG MEN HAVE DONE. 6 1 

chief of the Governors over all the wise men of Baby- 
lon while yet a young man. When "he purposed in 
his heart that he would not defile himself with the 
portion of the king's meat, nor with the wine which 
he drank' ' he was only a child. 

Samson, the judge and deliverer of Israel, showed 
his great physical strength and wisdom in his boyhood. 
He killed the lion ' 'as though it were a kid' ' at twenty, 
and with the jaw-bone of an ass, he put forth his hand 
and slew a thousand men therewith, when he was 
twenty-one. 

Josiah was appointed king of Judah at eight years 
of age. He began to seek the Lord at sixteen, and was 
actively engaged in purging the nation of idolatry 
at twenty. 

Jeremiah, the great prophet, began his sacred 
mission when a small boy. His plea for keeping 
silent was, "Ah, Iyord God! behold I cannot speak, 
for I am a child.' ' But the I^ord put forth his hand 
and touched his mouth and he was a great prophet," a 
defenced city and an iron pillar and brazen walls 
against the whole land," before he was ten years of 
age. 

Eusha was young in years when he became the 
prophet of Israel. He was ploughing in the field near 
the road leading from Damascus to Horeb when the 
mantle of Elijah was placed upon his shoulders, and 
leaving his plow and kissing his father and mother 
farewell, he at once began his great work. 

Saui, of Tarsus learned the trade of tent-making 
while a mere lad and went to Jerusalem to prosecute 
his studies in the learning of the Jews and to study law 
under the great teacher, Gamaliel, at thirteen. It was 
to this period of his life, no doubt, that he referred 
when he said, "When I was a child I spake as a child, 



62 manhood's morning. 

I understood as a child, I thought as a child, but when 
I became a man, I put away childish things." He 
was a faithful and zealous Pharisee, and while young 
in years distinguished himself as an able champion of 
his faith. He was converted and was a leader in 
christian precept and preaching while yet in his 
twenties. 

Shadrach, Mkshach and Abkd-nego, the three 
Hebrews w r ho were cast into the fiery furnace because 
they would not fall down and worship the golden image 
which Nebuchadnezzar had set up in the Plains of 
Dura, were young men. With Daniel, they were 
"children in whom was no blemish, skillful in all wis- 
dom and cunning in knowledge, and understanding 
science." 

John thk Baptist, as a child, grew and waxed 
strong and spent his boyhood in retirement, and when 
he began to preach in the wilderness he was a young 
man. 

John, the beloved disciple, was only twenty years old 
when called as an apostle. 

Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Son of God, was about 
his father's business at twelve. He "waxed strong in 
spirit and was filled with wisdom" while yet a child, 
and sat in the temple in the midst of the doctors both 
hearing them and asking them questions, astonishing 
all by his questions and answers. He increased in 
wisdom and stature and in favor with God and man, 
and performed and finished his mission while yet young 
in years and in his physical prime. During his life he 
constantly complimented and honored youth. His dis- 
ciples were perhaps all young men. His miracles and 
parables show a special devotion to young people. 
When he fed the five thousand he did not make use oi 
the wise and strong, but took the five barley loaves and 



WHAT SOME YOUNG MEN HAVE DONE. 63 

two small fishes from a boy. When he wished to teach 
who should be greatest in the kingdon of heaven, he 
•did not point to his most faithful follower, but lifted an 
innocent and trustful child to illustrate the virtues 
which lead men to heavenly high places. The titles 
which are most full of sympathy and tenderness are 
those which reveal the youthfulness of our Savior. He 
is the " Bright and Morning Star,' ' the "Holy Child," 
the "Only-begotten Son," the "Day-spring/ ' the 
4 'Lamb of God' ' the "Prince of Peace." 



Now as Jannes and Jambres * * . Paul 

"Our fathers to their graves have gone, 
Their strife is past — their triumphs won; 

But sterner trials wait the race, 

Which rises in their honored place — 

A moral warfare with the crime 
And folly of an evil time." — Whittier. 

It looks very much as if existing tendencies were in the 
dead-line of vice. — Josiah Strong. 

And at the town there is a fair kept, called Vanity-Fair: 
it is kept all the year long. — John Bunyan. 

No sooner is a temple built to God, but the Devil builds 
a chapel hard by. — Herbert. 

When a yung man beginz tu go down hil evrithing 
seams tu bee greezed fur the ockashun. — Josh Billings. 

' 'The bird which is ensnared by one leg is as surely the 
prey of the fowler as if it were seized by both wings." 

"He that spares vice wrongs virtue." 

Better be unborn than untaught; for ignorance is the root 
of misfortune. — Plato. 



CHAPTER IV. 



WILD OATS AND OTHER WKEDS. 



The subject of morals is a serious and delicate study. 
To unfairly shade the moral character of an individual 
or any class of individuals is not only a gross injustice 
but it is slander. Be the facts what they may, ques- 
tions which involve moral character should never be 
discussed, nor commented upon, except to commend 
and praise, unless some definite salutary end is to be 
achieved. 

The truth should be scrupulously followed in all 
such discussions. A sacred responsibility always at- 
tends the publication of facts regarding adverse moral 
conditions. Parading and advertising sin and wicked- 
ness before the public often rivals, if it does not sur- 
pass in its demoralizing effects, the direct injury in- 
flicted by their committal. Immoral gossip is of itself 
a loathsome disease and never a remedy. None should 
discuss the subject without earnestly praying 

"Fair charity, be thou my guest 

And be thy constant couch my breast." 

I am not among those who believe that the young 
men of America are devoid of virtue and goodness. 
On the contrary I know they furnish innumerable ex- 
amples of manhood of the highest and noblest type. 
In every community may be found young men who 
are noble in heart and pure in character. They can 



66 manhood's morning. 

be found in every position in life. They may be poor 
in purse, brawny of muscle and ordinary of brain, but 
they are the salt of the earth and the light of the world; 
veritable temples in which dwell the attributes of 
divinity and the higher qualities of manly character. 

The twelve million young men of America, taken as 
a whole, represent inherent powers for development, 
somewhat latent though they may be, that are inex- 
pressibly inspiring and full of promise. They are 
honest, industrious, patriotic and noble hearted. They 
are in full sympathy with the principles of liberty, 
truth and justice. They are of honorable birth; they 
can boast of patriotic and virtuous ancestry. Their 
inherited and natural characteristics are an embodi- 
ment of those traits of manhood which insure national 
honor and which maintain with sacred loyalty the 
duties of citizenship. 

It is an incontrovertible fact that the past has been 
marked by an improvement in morals. Mankind is 
growing better. The standards to which men must 
aspire are, however, constantly being raised. The 
world is improving and demanding better men. The 
standards have advanced more rapidly than men have. 
While men have improved they are further from the 
standards — from what they should be — than ever be- 
fore. While men were never so good as now the im- 
perative demand that they climb to a still higher plane 
was never so great. 

// must be admitted that vice and evil habits continue 
to rage in the land. It must also be admitted that 
young men are the chief transgressors. From one 
border of our dominion to the other, among the high 
and the low, the cultured and the ignorant, the rich 
and the poor, the prominent and the obscure; where- 
ever young men abound, there come unmistakable 



WII,D OATS AND OTHER WEEDS. 67 

evidences of a moral degeneracy deplorable in the ex- 
treme. Never in the history of our nation were vice 
and immorality so powerfully and systematically or- 
ganized as they are to-day. Wickedness revels and 
wallows in moral filth and fatness and young men, 
legion upon legion, are charmed and led astray by its 
fascinations, and, filled with a wild passion for pleasure, 
they sacrifice the flower of their manhood at its bid- 
ding, and worship at its shrine. Indeed, personal and 
social impurity, vice, evil habits, intemperance and 
morbid dissipation have become recognized character- 
istics of the young men of the nation. In too many 
American homes may it be said 

"The tones of every household voice 

Are grown more sad and deep, 
And the sweet word— brother— wakes a wish 

To turn aside and weep." 

There are few epithets more stigmatizing than to say 
that a young fellow "has gone like most young men." 
It means that he has gone to the bad. To gain the 
reputation of being "one of the boys'" is little short of 
ill repute. It is a sad fact that the experience of too 
many of our boys and young men from their earliest 
career as such, is little else than a panorama of vice 
and wickedness. 

Those who have made a study of secret and social 
sins are appalled at the terrible array of facts which con- 
fronts them. This should not be so. Because the 
time has come when a high rating must be placed upon 
manhood. An inevitable result of advancing civiliza- 
tion has been to bring the physical and moral natures 
of men into close relations. As man progresses in the 
upward scale an increasing demand is made for the ex- 
ercise of all his parts — muscle, mind, talents, genius 
and heart — and the problem of bringing all these attri- 
butes of his nature into harmonious action must not 



68 manhood's morning. 

remain unsolved. When men gained a livelihood al- 
most wholly by manual labor, physical strength was a 
chief virtue. But man's duties now consist of respon- 
sibility rather than labor, and call for powers of a 
higher and more complex nature than simple physical 
force. 

Never were vice and wickedness so intimately related 
to success, prosperity and progress as they are to-day. 
Morals have become an economic question. Virtue to a 
remarkable degree has become a fundamental principle 
of our government. All genuine progress must be 
marked by the increase of moral cleanliness and the 
spread of social purity. Every young man who for- 
sakes a high moral standard becomes less and less a 
part of the national greatness in the highest and best 
sense. 

Many people seem to regard vice, evil habits and 
the various species of * 'wild oats' ' as simply morbid 
growths, like warts on the fingers or corns on the toes, 
and believe that some day they will mysteriously dis- 
appear never to be seen or- felt again. Such delusions 
ruin more young men than war, pestilence and famine 
combined. Vice is the devil's weapon, and its mission 
is to ensnare, delude, blight and damn. When a young 
man acquires the habit of the smallest vice he opens 
the way for others. No matter whether it be physical, 
mental, or moral, the contagion runs through the entire 
nature. 

"Faults in the life breed errors in the brain, 
And these, reciprocally, those again, 
The mind and conduct mutually imprint, 
And stamp their image in each other's mint." 

Thus it is that evil habits and vices of all kinds are 
so closely related — always associated, acting and re- 
acting upon each other — that it is impossible to tell 



WILD OATS AND OTHER WEEDS. 69 

where they begin, or just how much any single one in- 
sures or helps the work of ruin. 

Irreverence is almost an universal vice among young 
men, A deplorable lack of reverence is shown for 
superiors and for sacred things, for parents and for the 
aged, for womanhood, for religion and for law and 
order. Perhaps of nothing else are young men so uni- 
versally guilty. The coarse remark, the unkind ridi- 
cule and the cruel whisper is seldom suppressed or even 
rebuked. They find it so easy to sneer that they take 
to it naturally. Milton says: "A beardless cynic is 
the shame of nature/ ' yet they can be found every- 
where. Young men are more given to idle gossip, to 
defamation and to scandal than any other class. Says 
a recent writer: * 'Women are rapidly going out of the 
gossiping business and men are taking their places." 
This assertion is too true. Young men are the most 
heartless gossipers in the world and by none is 
calumny prated with such merciless injustice. They 
originate more blighting and ruinous defamations of 
virtue and character, and feed the flames of scandal 
with more indifference and rancor, than all others 
combined. Filial affection and honor toward parent- 
hood and a devout and manly reverence for religion 
and holy things are virtues sadly too rare. The tender 
and humane, the merciful and reverential in man are 
greatly in need of cultivation. 

Reverence and respect for that which is higher and 
greater than we are, show the stamp of good breeding. 
The young man who fails to develop these virtues in 
his life robs himself of the most manly and elevating 
possession. Reverence toward parents, the aged, 
womanhood and God, gives to young men a nobility of 
character secured in no other way. 



70 manhood's morning. 

Vulgarity is a national curse. The habit of saying 
and doing vulgar things is a common vice. Vulgar 
yarns, stories and jokes, vulgar by-words and smutty 
phrases and off-color insinuations travel like wildfire 
among young men. Indeed masculine conversation is 
besmirched with these things. They find their way 
into the newspapers, dime novels and much of our 
cheap literature. L,et a real smutty joke be unearthed 
within some focus of iniquity in New York City and it 
will climb the Alleghenies, travel through the Missis- 
sippi Valley and over the western plains and be hawked 
about the streets of San Francisco in less than a week. 
It is the debasing and polluting feature of the language. 
Thousands of young men think or talk little else. 

Almost all knowledge imparted to boys concerning 
the sacred relations of the sexes, and of the transmitting 
forces of life is clothed in language as vulgar and ob- 
scene as ever echoed in the streets of Sodom. It flows 
like the breath from lip to lip, from men to boys, from 
boys to children until its blighting and damning voice 
is heard upon every side. As a consequence there is 
an indellible immoral taint to the imagination of almost 
every mind. 

Vulgar pictures meet the gaze everywhere. Cigar 
and tobacco stores are panoramas of artistic lewdness. 
Advertisements of cheap theatrical performances cater 
to sensuality almost entirely. They are so made be- 
cause the morbid tastes of young men are attracted by 
the carnality which they suggest. 

No bait is more captivating to the average young 
man than a questionable picture, and cigarette manu- 
facturers have, by offering such as prizes to purchasers 
of their goods, wrought an injury upon youthful minds 
only surpassed by the smoking of their vile and drugged 
concoctions of tobacco. 



WILD OATS AND OTHER WEEDS. 7 1 

The naked bosom of the ballroom and dance hall, 
and the padded legs in silken tights upon the stage, 
simply meet a popular demand for such things. Their 
influence upon the moral character of young men is 
such that the devil and all his angels might be chal- 
lenged to produce something more alluring and vile in 
results. 

It is not the nude, but the vulgar in nature and art 
that leads to defilement of mind and heart. A picture 
or statue does not have to be nude to be vulgar. In- 
deed, this has but little to do with it. 

A British painter was criticised for exhibiting nude 
pictures upon the walls of the Royal Academy at each 
annual exhibition. In response to the criticism he ex- 
hibited, the following year, two pictures, one of which 
was remarkable for its purity, yet entirely nude, and 
the other a female figure entirely draped with the ex- 
ception of one eye. In that one eye he depicted sug- 
gestions which he had always labored to avoid in other 
paintings, thus proving that vulgarity and sensuality 
are entirely distinct from genuine art and beauty. An 
artistic picture or piece of statuary may stand out in 
absolute nudeness and yet inspire pure and noble 
thoughts. When art is fashioned in vulgar curves 
and expressions, what would otherwise be proper, be- 
comes an arrow laden with sensual poison ready to 
pierce the heart of any and all who will yield to the 
tempter. Art has a responsible and sacred mission in 
the cause of reverence, purity and virtue. 

Profanity rages among young men. It is said that 
"profanity is our national sin, ,, and that * 'America is 
the profanest nation in the world/ ' These assertions 
are too true. Old men swear, young men swear, boys 
swear, children swear. Curses — deliberate and vile, 
cowardly and terrible, bloodcurdling and blasphemous 



72 manhood's morning, 

— can be heard upon every side. There are legions of 
young men who cannot emphasize what they have to 
say unless they resort to oaths to do it. Profanity 
takes the place of adjectives, adverbs, interjections and 
e iclamation points. The language of some persons is 
distoited almost beyond comprehension by oaths. 
When in society too decent to tolerate vile, blasphemous 
speech they are totally incapable of expressing their 
ideas. 

The chronic swearer becomes constitutionally af- 
flicted. The habit becomes second nature and an 
organic part of the language. Such victims always 
lament their fate. They despise the habit but they are 
its slaves. Profane language is the most execrable and 
vile that pollutes the tongue and of all men the victim 
of such a habit is one of the most pitiable. 

Swearing is not only a useless but a stupid habit. 
It soon creates a poverty of expression and betrays a 
morbid and depraved mind. It tends to destroy refine- 
ment and culture and promote a coarse and brutal in- 
stinct. No matter how brilliant in mind or how gener- 
ous in spirit a man may be, the habit of profanity will 
warp and contaminate his mind, and destroy the finer 
and nobler qualities of his character. 

Vulgarity and profanity are twin vices. They co- 
operate in working injury. They are both mental 
habits and tend to destroy the very best part of man — 
his selfrespect, his personal magnetism and his love 
for that which is virtuous and beautiful. 

Tobacco is used by young men to a deplorable extent. 
Its use is not far from universal. Legions chew it, 
legions smoke it, legions use it in both ways. Tobacco 
is the Youths- bane of modern civilization. The cigar- 
ette fiend is legion. 

About $750,000,000, are spent annually for tobacco 



WILD OATS AND OTHER WEEDS. 73 

in the United States. This vast sum is chewed and 
smoked up, and young men consume a large share of 
it. If this vast sum were turned into houses and furni- 
ture it would give to one thousand j^oung men a fifteen 
hundred dollar house, furnished with five hundred 
dollars' worth of furniture, every day in the year. In 
other words, it would handsomely supply one thousand 
newly married couples with a respectable house and 
home every morning. 

According to the Report of the Commissioner of In- 
ternal Revenue for 1892, there were manufactured in 
the United States during that year, for home consump- 
tion, the enormous number of 3,137,318,596 cigarettes. 
Nearly all of these are smoked by young men. If these 
cigarettes were laid end to end in a row they would 
encircle the earth three times. It takes about ten 
minutes to smoke a cigarette, at which rate, to con- 
sume our annual out-put, it would keep busy, for ten 
hours every day in the year, no less than one hundred 
and forty-three thousand men. 

During the same year there were manufactured 
4,422,024,212 cigars. It takes about fifteen minutes to 
smoke a cigar, at which rate, to consume the number 
manufactured, it would require over three hundred 
thousand men, smoking ten hours per day, every day in 
the year. 

But this is not all. There were manufactured during 
the same year 76,088,300 pounds of smoking tobacco. 
To smoke this quantity would require, smoking ten 
hours daily, about one million men. 

The habit of smoking in our nation is equal to near- 
ly one and one-half million men smoking ten hours 
daily and fully one half of this is done by young men. 

There were used in the manufacture of the cigarettes 
10,000,000 pounds of tobacco, and in the cigars 



74 manhood's morning. 

85,000,000 pounds of the weed. During the same year 
there were manufactured 166,177,913 pounds of plug 
tobacco and 16,968,870 pounds of fine-cut. With this 
vast amount of nicotine poison were put immense quanti- 
ties of opium, valerian, guaic and other drugs, all in- 
tended to make the habit more fascinating and the 
effect more sedative and deceptive. 

The annual production of manufactured ' 'plug' ' and 
1 'fine-cut' ' was 183,146,783 pounds. There are at 
least one hundred chews in a pound of tobacco, and 
each chew will consume about one-half hour. At this 
rate it requires two and one -half million men, each 
chewing ten hours daily, to masticate the annual out- 
put. 

The great army of tobacco consumers, supposing 
that each one is either chewing or smoking ten hours 
daily, Sunday included, may be calculated about as 
follows: 

Smoking 3, 137, 3 18 596 Cigarettes.Men required 143, 000 
" 4,422,024,212 Cigars, " " 400,000 

" 76,088, 300 lbs. Tobacco/' " 1,000,000 

Chewing 183,176,783 " " " " 2,500,000 

Men chewing or smoking 10 hours daily 4,043,000 

This is equal to two-thirds of all the men in the 
United States devoting three hours daily in using 
tobacco. This estimate is surely very conservative. 
What a tremendous power this subtle and destroying 
narcotic poison exercises over American manhood? 

When we consider that nearly all the cigarettes, at 
least one-half of the cigars, and a large share of the 
smoking and chewing tobacco, are consumed by young 
men, the extent to which they indulge in tobacco is 
partly realized. 



WILD OATS AND OTHER WEEDS. 75 

While many old men use it, yet nineteen-twentieths 
of them acquired the habit when young. At least one 
thousand boys and young men begin to use tobacco 
every day in the year. Many of them get their first 
lesson by picking up cigar stumps in the streets, cast 
away by christians, and sucking themselves sick. 
Others, to secure the weed, pick the pockets of their 
fathers, and, in seclusion, learn to smoke and chew 
like their elders. A whole legion, tempted by vulgar 
and alluring prize pictures, spend their pennies for 
cigarettes, and treat their companions in imitation of 
the common custom among men. No vice so decoys 
its victims to habits of personal nastiness, deceit, dis- 
honesty, licentiousness and profligacy. 

While less money is spent for tobacco than for 
liquors, it is so much cheaper from a physiological 
standpoint, that the consumption of tobacco should be 
considered as vastly greater than that of liquors. Ten 
cents will purchase twenty cigarettes, from one to 
several cigars, and many chews of tobacco, while it will 
buy only two glasses of beer or one glass of wine or 
whiskey. 

The annual product of tobacco in the United States 
is over 400,000,000 pounds. It contains from two to 
eight per cent, of nicotine, which is a deadly poison. 
One pound of tobacco contains poison sufficient to kill 
three hundred men if taken in a way to secure its full 
effects. If what is chewed and smoked were swallowed 
it would kill every man, woman and child three times 
a day. If young men consume one half of it they 
smoke and chew enough poison, if taken inwardly, to 
kill them five thousand times annually or, a fatal dose 
every two hours, were they not accustomed to its use, 
daily the year around. 



76 manhood's morning. 

Intemperance is common among young men. There 
is serious danger of America becoming a nation of 
drunkards. For forty years the per capita consump- 
tion of alcoholic liquors has rapidly increased. It is 
increasing at the present time. In many localities the 
man who don't drink more or less is the exception and 
not the rule. Especially is this true of young men. 
They are attracted to the barroom almost as easily as 
pigs are to the swill. 

There are about 250,000 liquor and beer saloons in 
the United States, or one for every fifty young men. 
The people annually consume over one hundred million 
gallons of strong liquors and about one billion gallons 
of beer. There are sixty drinks of liquor and about 
sixteen drinks of beer in a gallon. This would make 
six billion drinks of liquor and sixteen billion glasses 
of beer, or twenty-two billion drinks altogether, which 
find their way, every year, down the throats of the 
American people. It would seem that more than one- 
half of this is drank by young men. This allows over 
eleven hundred drinks annually to each young man, or 
three drams every day in the year. From time to time 
an effort has been made by Christian Associations, and 
by those interested in the subject of young men, to find 
out to what extent they drink as compared with those 
older in years. The result of all investigations reveals 
the fact that overwhelmingly young men compose the 
drinking class. Instead of "old toper" we should say 
"young toper," as the great majority of such appear to 
be young men. 

The following data were collected by reliable persons 
under special instructions and show what is going on 
all the time in almost every populous section of our 
land. The figures are not guess-work, but are actual 
counts made upon the spot. In a city of 32,000 in- 



WII<D OATS AND OTHER WEEDS. 77 

habitants 600 young men entered five of the prominent 
saloons in one hour. There are one hundred and 
thirty-five saloons in the city. In a city of 30,000 
population 452 young men entered four saloons in two 
hours. In a large western city 478 persons were seen 
to enter a single saloon in one night and nearly all of 
them were young men. In another large city 236 
young men went into a prominent saloon in one hour. 
In a town with 11,000 population 725 young men 
visited thirty-four of the fifty saloons of the city in one 
night. In an eastern manufacturing city, the Y. M. 
C. A. Secretary visited nineteen saloons during one 
evening and found 275 young men therein. Had he 
visited all the saloons of the city and found a pro- 
portionate number in each he would have found 6,000 
young men in the saloons of the entire city. 

In another eastern city, with a population of 130,000, 
during one Saturday evening, 355 young men entered 
five saloons in two hours. It was estimated that not 
less than 5,000 entered the one hundred saloons of the 
city during the same evening. 

It is estimated that fully 4000 young men enter a 
single saloon in one of our largest eastern cities daily. 
In San Francisco during one Sunday and Sunday night 
15,933 young men were counted at base-ball, theatres, 
saloons and dens of iniquity, and the Sunday evening 
before only 1892 young men attended all the churches 
of the city. In a city of 30,000 population there are 
150 saloons and 1045 young men entered seven of them 
one Saturday night, and only 75 attended all the 
churches of the city next day. In a town of 7,000 in- 
habitants 130 young men entered three saloons in a 
single hour. In a city of 17,000 population more than 
one-third of all the young men in the city went into 
the drinking saloons in one hour during a Saturday 
night. 



78 manhood's morning. 

The above statistics, while not new, they can be 
verified at any time. Similar data have been collected 
under various auspices, and the unanimous result has 
been that North, South, East and West, wherever sa- 
loons exist, an almost universal habit of dissipation 
among young men is revealed. 

The liquor bill of the nation has grown to be over 
one billion dollars, and the most of this money is hard 
earned cash from the pockets of young men who can 
ill afford to spend it. Nearly two billion dollars are 
annually spent for liquor and tobacco. Together they 
form the most gigantic and influential system of busi- 
ness enterprise the nation supports. 

From one-third to one-half of this enormous sum is 
spent by young men. This means that they spend 
from $600,000,000 to $1,000,000,000 annually for that 
which inflicts a direct and permanent injury. A very 
conservative estimate would regard it fully one-seventh 
of all they earn. 

The use of tobacco and liquor is a wedded vice. 
Young men drink because they use tobacco, and they 
use tobacco because they drink. They forfeit their 
manhood and social standing, waste their health, time 
and money, disgrace their name and break the laws be- 
cause they use both. These habits destroy nerve force, 
dwarf all the finer elements of manhood and breed 
ignorance, filth and laziness. The nicotine of tobacco, 
dissolved in the alcohol of beer and whiskey, finds its 
way to the deepest and innermost vitals. Thus com- 
mingled, they force each other into action, the whole 
body becomes poison-soaked and pickled, and only the 
shadow of the original man is retained. Within the 
vitals of the young men of America, these two elements 
are daily poisoning and devitalizing untold millions of 
human beings yet unborn, inflicting an inevitable curse 



WII.D OATS AND OTHER WEEDS. 79 

upon posterity, the result of which will be children with 
debilitated nerves, impaired intellects, abnormal appe- 
tites and passions, and weakened powers of will. The 
use of these two agents — alcohol and tobacco — is in- 
flicting upon the young manhood of America, at the 
present time, a greater curse than was ever wrought by 
any other agents upon any people in any age in human 
history. They challenge in their destructive effects the 
blackest and saddest records of either plague, famine, 
or war. To a remarkable degree they assist each other 
in human destruction. They are co-workers with the 
devil, and Satan himself, were he given universal do- 
minion and power, could not devise two agents to oper- 
ate more in harmony to dwarf, to degrade, to blight, to 
destroy, to kill and damn the men of the nation. 

The vice of self-pollution is an existing curse. Those 
in a position to know pronounce it a common habit 
among young men. They are its chief and choice 
prey. In silence and in darkness, unheard and unseen, 
it spreads like a contagious disease, from one to many 
— from man to men and from boy to boys — until its in- 
fluence is a national scourge, from which, alas! alas! 
too few escape. Unlike any other vice, it can be 
practiced without anyone but the guilty victim know- 
ing it, until the effects of its ravages are written in the 
countenance. 

It is impossible to know to what extent the habit 
prevails. It is enough to know that it is abroad in 
the land. Every student of moral and social conditions 
knows that it is a common evil, and that no vice is more 
strongly encouraged by passion . One writer of national 
reputation- says: "The extent to which the habit is 
carried on is amazing.' ' Another who has consulted a 
large number of prominent physicians upon the subject 
says: "Physicians of large practice can be found almost 



80 manhood's morning. 

everywhere ready to testify that the habit is well nigh 
universal." That such statements can remain unchal- 
lenged is a disgraceful reproach, not only upon young 
manhood, but upon fatherhood and motherhood and 
every other force, be it Christian, heathen or pagan, 
that can wield an influence against this life and soul 
destroying sin. While there is no habit among the 
young to which parents and teachers should give more 
attention, yet there is none perhaps to which they pay 
so little concern. 

Licentiousness prevails among young men. The liber- 
tine, the leper and the moral rake are legion. The 
seducer of virtue struts in triumph upon every side. 
Our nation fairly swarms with young men who look 
upon woman as a fit subject for beastly indulgence. 
With one eye they will jealously guard their own kith 
and kindred, yet with the other eye they will watch 
for game upon which to satisfy their brutal natures and 
polluted appetites. It is a common belief that history 
is simply time revolving, and that at long intervals it 
repeats itself. It does seem that the wanton indul- 
gences that have sent nations into disgraced oblivion 
were threatening American manhood. Greece, Venice 
and Rome, through prostitution, wantonness and 
libertinism, fell from eminence in civilization into dark- 
ness and ruin, and these vices are the menace that 
threatens America to-day. 

The extent to which licentiousness is practiced is a 
question upon which opinions differ only in degree. 
All know that it is a prevalent and growing evil. All 
conclusions must of necessity be largely guess-work. 
The vice is concentrated among women and diffused 
among men. Young men are its chief followers. Be- 
tween twenty and thirty is the period in which men 
are most given to the habit. It is estimated that for 



WILD OATS AND OTHER WEEDS. 8 1 

every fallen woman there are from five to eight 
fallen men. The eminent Rev. B. D. DaCosta, D. D., 
of New York City says: "If one wants to know the 
number of impure men in a community, all that is 
necessary is to find the number of impure women and 
multiply it by five." This rule will, no doubt, more 
than hold good. 

The social evil in all large cities is organized upon a 
business basis. Legions of young men flock into the 
great centres of population and find themselves sur- 
rounded by vicious influences which only the most de- 
termined qualities of character can resist. In many 
sections of the great west, prostitution, in an indirect 
way, is licensed, thus practically receiving the sanc- 
tion of the law. Licentiousness — debasing, vile and 
doubly criminal — was the greatest curse connected with 
human slavery, and it still continues as the blighting 
and sinful outrage of the southern states. 

The moral degeneracy of New York City, Pittsburg, 
Chicago and other cities has been recently ventilated 
somewhat but only the more flagrant transgressions 
have been revealed. It has been estimated that there 
are 40,000 prostitutes in New York City. This seems 
monstrous, yet the estimate is from reliable sources. 
More conservative observers place the number at 25,- 
000. This evidently is entirely within the facts. 
Chicago it is claimed, has 30,000. Pittsburg and 
other cities are not far behind. In one precinct in 
Chicago, there are thirty-seven brothels, and forty-five 
saloons, and this is only what may be found in a more 
modified form in various sections of the city. In San 
Francisco "four streets are given up almost entirely to 
houses of prostitution.' ' In Philadelphia, "in one 
section, containing less than half a block, there are 
forty properties, thirty of which are brothels." In 



82 manhood's morning. 

another section more than fifty brothels are in close 
proximity. Another half-block "contains forty-four 
properties of which forty are brothels, and by actual 
count, there are a thousand visitors to them daily.' ' 

A recent writer in The Arena for March, 1896, who 
is pastor of a church, in an article entitled, "The 
Social Evil in Philadelphia, says: "As many as five 
thousand women live among us by the sale of their 
bodies. I wish I might have confidence that the esti- 
mate is too high; but nearly six years of observation 
make me fear that the figures are much too low. ' ' 
This estimate includes simply what might be classed 
as "professionals' ' and does not embrace a "vast multi- 
tude' ' whose shame escapes the lawless bed-house and 
brothel. 

Prostitution is unquestionably on the increase. From 
the large cities, in an organized form, it finds its way 
into smaller cities and towns until its lecherous presence 
is everywhere. It has become insolent and bold and 
is condoned where, years ago, it would have been in- 
tolerable. 

Licentiousness in the nation is not woman's but 
man's sin. Referring to the fallen women of New 
York City, Mr. Samuel C. Blackwell, a reliable authority 
says: "As a rule, each one of them was misled before 
she fell; cunning flattery, money, deceit, falsehood, 
possibly force led her to a fate she did not choose. ' ' 
Says Mrs. Dora Webb in a recent public address: "Im- 
migrants arriving in New York City furnish 20,000 
victims annually," and that "young girls are kid- 
napped, entrapped by deceptions, bought and sold for 
cash like slaves in the market of lust. ' ' And what is true 
of New York City is true the nation over. Mrs. Charl- 
ton Edholm, of Chicago, in a recent address in Balti- 
more, said: "I stand here in the presence of God to 



WIU> OATS AND OTHKR WEEDS. 83 

say that of the 230,000 erring girls in this land three- 
fourths of them have been snared and trapped, bought 
and sold." 

Says Mr. J. B. Welty, a man of careful investiga- 
tion: "To supply the demands of passion in men, one 
hundred families must give up a daughter apiece every 
day in the round year. What a draft is this on homes! 
What sin and shame and misery and heartaches and 
remorse and cruelty and murder and death and damna- 
tion this means!' ' How few of us remember and ap- 
preciate the words of the poet who wrote: 

"O, wronged and scarred and stained with ill, 
Behold! thou art a woman still." 

Men need to be taught that the social evil is their 
affair. The degradation is their work. Four-fifths of 
it is carried on by young men. Social impurity the 
world over is man's power against woman's weakness; 
man's cunning against woman's credulity; man's 
willingness to traduce against woman's nature to trust. 
Too often it is his passions against her poverty, and 
his subtle wile against her confiding innocence. ' 'Not 
one woman in a hundred will seek her own shame. ' ' 
It is the unbridled and fiendish passions of man that 
steeps our nation in crimson crime, and not the seduc- 
tive charms of fallen women, as too many would have 
us believe. Man is the artful designer and aggressor, 
the seducer and adulterer and woman is his victim. 

Disgraced and fallen womanhood is not so much a 
cause of licentiousness as it is a result of it. Were 
Christ to again write with his finger in the sands of 
earth how few young men could look upon the words! 
Were his example put in practice in our nation to-day, 
how the tears of a redeemed womanhood would fall at 
his feet; how the mountains, dark corners and hiding 
places would be filled with men! To what a vast legion 



84 manhood's morning. 

is the Seventh Commandment a dead letter! What a 
horde of human brutes stand ready to humiliate and 
disgrace the American home! How little parenthood 
is honored; how meanly sisterhood is prized; how con- 
temptibly virtue is esteemed? How villiany, while its 
blood is hot with unholy lust, coos and caresses, 
pleads and palavers, and when its mad passion has 
made its conquests, how it skulks in triumph while its 
victims, disgraced, ostracised and socially damned, are 
forced in silent remorse to drink sorrow's bitterest dregs! 

When homes have been pillaged of virtue and fair 
daughters led astray, how deep is the precipice over 
which they must fall! How mammon - wild traders, 
organized for the purpose, gather them in and stamp 
their shattered bodies with a price ! How resistless is 
the power that transforms filial affection into carnal 
mockery ! How cruel is the tyranny which demands 
that the sweet song of the sister become the silly strains 
of the siren and that the sacred kiss for a lover become 
a medium of lust upon the polluted lips of the leper! 
When the sweet and beautiful souls of maidens have 
become the black and blighted shadows of harlotry and 
scavengers in human flesh have stocked their haunts 
of shame with such merchandise, what a legion of 
young men are, like brutes, only too willing to feed 
upon the offal ! 

The vice of gambling in many localities is common 
among young men. There is much more gambling 
going on than real good people suppose. Tens of 
thousands of young men are infatuated by it and its 
influence over them is enslaving in the extreme. Bet- 
ting upon elections, prize fights, horse races, bicycle 
races, base ball, foot ball and other games, in the pool 
room and at the card table is a practice entirely too 
common. 



WILD OATS AND OTHER WEEDS. 85 

Boys and }-oung men are exceedingly credulous and 
they are easily infatuated by every kind of fake that 
offers much for little. Tiose whose earnings are small, 
and those with larger incomes, are all eager to swell 
their coffers. The temptation to resort to get-rich- 
quick schemes, in order to fill the pockets with cash, is 
keen and dazzling. The pathway of young men is 
literally deluged with captivating inducements to try 
their hands in schemes where luck, and not strict busi- 
ness processes, is involved. Unprincipled sharpers 
reap a rich harvest from the hard earned savings of 
young men, and in return give only an opportunity to 
meditate upon their losses or plunge deeper into the 
entangling net of dishonesty and chance. 

Ignorance is too common among young men. By ig- 
norance is meant a lack of that kind of knowledge 
which is essential to man' s highest possibilities. There 
is an ignorance on account of which men do what is 
wrong, suffer disease and misfortune, and prematurely 
die. Ignorance is decay. "My people are destroyed 
for lack of knowledge, ' ' said the inspired writer. The 
young men of to-day lack this very kind of wisdom. 
Much of the wickedness and misery in the world is ig~ 
norance. The world is filled with tragedies that 
knowledge would have prevented. During times of 
peace competition and rivalry among men become in- 
tense, and to be intelligently equipped is the best 
guarantee of genuine success. Knowledge is power, 
safety and protection. A cultivated intellect, a trained 
reason, a disciplined will and educated faculties have 
become essential elements of citizenship. 

It is necessary that man's education embrace a knowl- 
edge of not only physical and financial, but moral, 
social and spiritual things. To waste the intellectual 
powers upon insipid and non-elevating subjects entirely 



86 manhood's morning. 

is the mistake of legions of young men. Newspapers 
which parade sensational news, accounts of prize-fights, 
police episodes, lapses of virtue and honor, sports of a 
low order, and which fill their pages with suggestive 
pictures and off-color slang and jokes, are the sort that 
gain readers. The pornographic titles of books sold 
for five and ten cents at news-stands show the popular 
demand for literary trash. 

Most young men have an acquired appetite for mor- 
bid details and suggestive illustrations. They read 
that which stirs the blood and arouses the prejudices 
and passions. That kind of knowledge which adds 
value to character and joy to life and which only a 
healthy and pure mind can enjoy is discarded by most 
young men. Such literature makes them tired. The 
Bible is never opened by millions of young men. The 
church is boy-cotted by nearly as many. They do not 
read a verse of scripture nor hear a sermon once a year. 
Only a small per cent, are church members and a less 
number are active in religious work. They do not 
seem to consider moral and religious teachings within 
the scope of their needs. They are not only ignorant, 
but oblivious of the needs and activities of the moral 
and religious world. 

At lectures and literary entertainments young men 
are conspicuous by their absence. Two of the most 
famous and entertaining orators in America, each 
recently delivered a lecture upon popular subjects — one 
lecture being specially for young people — in one of our 
largest cities, and although they were well advertised 
and delivered in a magnificent public hall, in the heart 
of the city, not twenty young men attended either; yet 
at the same hour over three thousand were attending 
theatres not ten squares away. 

One of the most difficult problems with which our 



WILD OATS AND OTHER WEEDS. 87 

institutions oflearning — literary, medical and law col- 
leges, and even theological seminaries — are called upon 
to contend, consists in keeping under subjection the 
coarse animalism and unbridled sensual appetites of 
those whom they are trying to educate and train for the 
active and serious duties of life. Indulgent and well- 
meaning parents often use the college to reform their 
profligate and incorrigible sons. The effect has been 
to spread vice of an educated sort, and give to the cause 
of social iniquity, recruits, able and willing to champion 
its right to exist. 

Lawlessness and crime arc on the increase* Criminals 
of all kinds abound. Tramps, gamblers, bummers, 
loafers, dead-beats, confidence men, professional pick- 
pockets, thieves, highway robbers, burglars, murderers 
and petty criminals are not only numerous, but increas- 
ing in proportion more rapidly than the population. 
They are all largely composed of young men. Statis- 
tics tell us that the average criminal is twenty-six 
years and four months old, and that the reinforcements 
to the legions of law-breakers are almost entirely 
young in years. There are over 100,000 tramps in the 
United States, wandering about without home or friends. 
These men are tough, filthy, and, many of them, in- 
fested with vermin. They sleep in the bushes and 
outhouses and beg from door to door. An overwhelm- 
ing majority of them are young men. 

A drove of professional tramps arrested by the police 
of a certain city were described as follows: "No tougher 
looking lot of men ever passed through the door of the 
Central Station than this collection of professional 
loafers. They were all stout, able-bodied fellows, well 
able to support themselves if they felt so inclined, and 
all of them between fifteen and thirty years of age/ ' 

According to the Census of 1890 there were 82 } ^2g 



$8 manhood's morning. 

prisoners in the various penitentiaries and prisons of 
the United States, and more than half of them were 
young men. There were, at the same time, 7,386 per- 
sons in prison charged with murder. Of this number 
393 were women, but considerably more than one-half 
were young men. Of the 45,233 persons serving sent- 
ence in various penitentiaries only 1791 were women, 
but young men composed a large majority of the whole. 
During the past ten years the number of female crimi- 
nals has decreased, but the number of males has very 
markedly increased. During the past ten years murder 
has increased fivefold. In 1886 there were 1449 
murders and homicides; in 1895 there were over 8,000. 
In 1890 there were 14,846 children in the different 
reformatories, and of this number 11,535 were boys. 
The insane asylums contained 97,535 inmates; the 
almshouses, 73,045; the county jails, 19,535, and almost 
every institution in the land for defectives is crowded 
to the fullest capacity. While the majority of these 
unfortunates may not be young men, yet such con- 
ditions are more the result of wild oats sown by young 
men, who afterward become fathers, than all other 
causes combined. 

Dr. J. W. Clokey, of Indiana, who has carefully 
studied this subject, says: "It is placing the figures in- 
side the facts, rather than outside, to say that at any 
given time in the United States there are 150,000 con- 
victs in its penitentiaries, prisons, jails and houses of 
refuge and correction. ' ' A good authority states that: 
"Not more than one-fifth of the active criminals are in 
prison at the same time." This would give our nation 
an enormous criminal population. Mr. Moody, in an 
address delivered in Philadelphia recently, said : ' 'There 
are 750,000 persons in this country who belong to the 
criminal class, and statistics show that the number is 



WIU> OATS AND OTHER WEEDS. 89 

increasing. In Massachusetts, in 1850, there was one 
criminal to every 800 of the population, in 1895 there 
was one criminal to every 225. Mor^ than half of the 
criminals are young men." 

Indifference has become a national characteristic of 
young men. To the higher claims of patriotism, moral- 
ity, religion and humanity, they show en apathy akin 
to deadness. There is a disinterested lukewarmness 
both widespread and profound. This lack of interest, 
on the part of young men, is one of the saddest features 
of the closing century. 

Our military force, in the event of war, is over ten 
million men, and should occasion demand it, they 
would, almost to the man, march forth at the country's 
call. Our force in the conflicts of peace is equally 
great. But it is latent and unavailable. A heedless 
indifference] hangs like a pall over the young man- 
hood of the nation. Within its indolent embrace all 
are made welcome. It is the enchanted ground of 
the good and the enslaving refuge of the bad. Under 
its composing influence men acquire the habit of being 
nominally anything and radically nothing; they cease 
to be either hot or cold, good or bad; in nothing nega- 
tive, in nothing positive, but passive in everything. 
Under the soft music of its lullaby, life lazily lounges 
in the lap of time; the saints of God grow easy in Zion; 
poverty and slavery, abject and cruel, slumber in 
silence, and the world, clothed in conformity, becomes 
wedded to indolence and sin. 

Indifference, careless and unconcerned, is the treason 
of the age. It cowardly looks on and blandly smirks 
while all that is vicious and wicked struts in insolent 
array. Swayed by its power, men cease to have any 
convictions in religion or principles in politics. Life's 
best motives are turned into the by-paths of policy and 



90 manhood's morning. 

its most sacred issues are laid upon the altars of com- 
promise. 

Indifference is the consuming foe of manhood. It 
chooses ambition and industry as its prey and even robs 
genius of its power. It is the stagnant pool where 
settle the miasms of indolence and lust which poison 
and pollute the fountains of Hie. Under its shady 
bowers vice, crime and shame find shelter, feed and 
flourish. It strongly resembles — it must be — the un- 
pardonable sin. It transforms the purest in mind into 
the vilest in thought and the noblest in character into 
the basest in action. It chills the enthusiasm, it dissi- 
pates the hopes and scatters the faith like the wind. 
It is deaf to duty, dumb to pity, and blind to care. It 
makes it possible to become dead in trespass and in sin. 
It saps the judgment, deadens the conscience and 
weakens the will. When indifference has gained the 
mastery the nobler impulses cease to direct, the moral 
nature atrophies and dies, the Holy Spirit is grieved 
away and man, in his moral and spiritual nature, be- 
comes effeminate, powerless and undone. 



"Cast thyself down."— The Devil. 

"Vice is a monster of so frightful mem 
As to be hateful needs but to be seen; 

Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face, 
We first endure, then pity, then embrace." 

"A child has a right to be born and not damned into the 
World . ' ' — Bishop South. 

"He who teaches not his son a trade does as though he 
taught him to be a thief." 

"Every man is the result of three factors — his ancestors,, 
his surroundings and his individuality. " 

"Never since the world began has youth been so catered 
to; never has it been surrounded by so many open temptations; 
never so much flattered, and yet at the same time never have 
the reins of discipline been so relaxed, " — Amelia E. Barr. 

"It may be said with measurable truthfulness that half the 
art of Christian living consists in shunning temptation." 

/. G. Holland. 

"Hints shrewdly strown mightily disturb the spirit. 

The sly suggestion toucheth nerves, and nerves contract 
the fronds, 

And the sensitive mimosa of affection trembleth to its* 
root." 



CHAPTER V. 



SOME REASONS WHY YOUNG MEN GO WRONG. 



The influences which shape the lives and mould the 
character of young men are varied and complex. Like 
everything else in nature, they are an outgrowth of 
forces and circumstances for which they are not re- 
sponsible and over which they can exercise but little 
control. Life does not begin at birth, but it runs back 
into ancestry. It is not bounded by the limitations of 
its own sphere, but it is a part of all the environments 
which surround it. 

Many of the things which go to make up man are 
manufactured articles. The fact that so many young 
men are wayward and wild does not prove their guilt 
any more clearly than it proves that the forces which 
brought them into existence, and which have moulded 
them into what they are, have been faulty and corrupt. 

Every one knows that the youag manhood of America 
is surrounded upon every side by influences which 
strongly tend to weaken physical vigor, overthrow 
moral character and bring to naught the best energies 
and aims of life. "No man lives without jostling and 
being jostled; and in all ways he has to elbow himself 
through the world, giving and receiving offense/ ' 

The circumstances under which we are born and grow 
up have so much to do in moulding character and 
habits that it often happens that what the world sees of 



94 manhood's morning. 

us contains only a fragment of our real selves. The 
powers which direct our footsteps are often so potent 
and so independent of our own design or intent that 
the lives we lead are extremely artificial. We instinct- 
ively imitate other people's manners and customs, we 
stumble over their mistakes and climb upon borrowed 
ladders, and too many lose their own individuality and 
live as a passive atom amidst a conglomerate whole. 

At no time in human history, perhaps, were hind- 
rances so numerous, seductive influences so subtle and 
man traps so broadcast and fascinating as now. So 
thickly strewn and so thoroughly organized are the 
besetments surrounding young men, that those who 
make a study of the subject cannot feel other than sur- 
prised that uprightness and morality prevail to the ex- 
tent they do. 

A fair chance to live a useful, successful and peace- 
ful life should be the common heritage of all. This 
chance is denied thousands of young men. It is made 
difficult for them to do right and easy to do wrong. 
They are exposed to influences — powerful and aggres- 
sive — which, from the beginning, conspire to lead them 
astray, thwart their success, impair their health, per- 
vert their ideas, cripple their powers of reason, destroy 
their energy and ambition, mar their character, modify 
their sense of honor, destroy their lives and damn their 
souls. Inherited discrepancies, parental training, edu- 
cation, social customs, popular habits of life, and even 
much that apes religion, all more or less operate against 
the best interests of recruiting generations. 

It is a fact that too few are well born. A frowning 
protest, during these modern times, stands at the 
threshold of parenthood, and too many of our race come 
into the world unbidden, unwanted and unblessed. 
When a child fails to receive the hallowed benediction 



WHY YOUNG MKN GO WRONG. 95 

of parental welcome and affection it is only half born. 
Young people get married criminally ignorant of the 
laws which govern the marriage relation. ' 'There is 
no place where wisdom is so much needed or ignorance 
so disastrous as just here; yet we do not even think of 
studying it; the whole subject is left in midnight dark- 
ness. ' ' 

Hereditary defects are accountable for much of the 
evil we see about us. Inherited appetites and morbid 
passions prove a scourge among young men. There 
are many of the most debasing traits of mind and 
character which, though inherited, lie dormant until 
the hour when manhood begins to bloom, when, like 
hardy plants in a rich soil, they will grow and wax 
strong and crowd out all manly qualities and make 
ruin inevitable. Thousands of boys grow up, filling 
homes with joy and gladness and crowning parenthood 
with hopes and promise, only to find their manhood 
honeycombed by inherited sins, and their natures filled 
with passions and appetites which mow them down like 
grass. 

The predisposition to crime and vicious habits, the 
appetite for alcohol and tobacco, the desire for licenti- 
ous indulgences, and the whole category of morbid 
traits and temperaments, are inherited just as naturally 
as the color of the hair or eyes or the shape of the head 
or foot. Both science and experience prove that these 
things are not accidents. 

Heredity closely follows inexorable laws, and the 
pivotal source between good and evil will never be 
understood until its laws are more closely studied; and 
genuine reform will never succeed until the lessons 
which these laws teach are put into practical operation. 
The warp of no fabric is more uniform than the threads 
of kinship which run down through the generations 



96 manhood's morning. 

of mankind, from parent to child and to children's 
children, holding together, with consistent fidelity, the 
dominant peculiarities of body, mind and character. 

It is inherited discrepancies, more than all else, that 
fill our homes with sickness and sadness, our jails with 
criminals, our almshouses with paupers, our asylums 
and charitable institutions with invalids, lunatics and 
imbeciles, and flood the country with vagabonds and 
tramps. Some years ago a reliable investigator (Mr. 
Dugdale, of the New York Prison Association,) traced 
the history of a certain family through seven genera- 
tions, and, * 'Among 540 direct descendants, and 169 
persons related by marriage or co-habitation, there were 
280 paupers and 140 criminals of the worst sort; guilty 
of seven murders, of theft, highway robbery and near- 
ly every other offense known in the calendar of crime. 
The estimated cost to the state of this family of crimi- 
nals, paupers and drunkards was $1,308, 000/ ' 

The celebrated John Cretien, with the taint of crime 
in his blood, was followed by three grandsons who 
committed murder, and nine great grandchildren, seven 
of whom died in prison. Of the remaining two, one 
was transported for highway robbery and the other was 
hanged. It is estimated by competent and careful ob- 
servers that from fifty to eighty per cent, of crime and 
mental defects is due, in some way, to heredity. 

Immigration tends to lower the standards of morality, 
and young men are the first to become influenced. 
While some of our best citizens have come to us from 
across the sea, yet a constant stream of degenerates 
swarm from other lands into America. It is an econo- 
mic policy of Europe to send to our shores its moral and 
social debris. Nearly three-fourths of the discharged 
Irish convicts find their way to America. Immigra- 
tion will not cease. Europe could send us 2,000,000 



WHY YOUNG MEN GO WRONG. 97 

emigrants annually for a century and then increase her 
own already over crowded population. The last Census 
shows that foreigners are three times as criminal in 
their natures, and that they are five times more apt to 
become paupers than American born citizens. 

Emigrants are composed chiefly of young men. 
They come in contact with American young men and 
the influence is vicious. The influence of the foreign 
element in creating a disrespect for religion, for law 
and order, and in corrupting politics is constant and 
powerful. The amalgamation between the races of the 
earth, constantly going on in America, has no parallel in 
human history. We are creating a new people. The 
English, Irish, German, French, Italian, Russian, 
Swede and Spanish; the Protestant, Catholic, Jew and 
nondescript, meet, commingle and marry, and out of 
the amalgam is developing a new race. The nations 
of the earth are forfeiting their identity upon American 
soil, and whether the reward will be a fateful sacrifice 
or a rich and blessed harvest the future alone can reveal. 

Legions of young men are without a home. There 
are in our nation two million young men practically 
homeless. They are travelling as salesmen, employes 
of railroads, steamboats, vessels, travelling shows and 
other enterprises, and as journeymen in all kinds of 
industry. There are 250,000 saloons in the nation, 
and from one to several young men can be found be- 
hind the bar of almost every one. All of these vocations 
require slavish devotion and long hours of service and 
most of them operate seven days in the week, giving 
no time for recreation or mental development, and no 
chance to gain the elevating and moral influence of 
home life. Their bread and butter come through a 
continual plod. Day in and day out, with no relief, 
they sacrifice comfort, lose sleep and waste the best 



98 manhood's morning. 

years of life in serving the exacting demands of organ- 
ized and incorporated greed and avarice. Their spare 
hours and surplus dollars are boldly sought by an end- 
less variety of dissipations over which the devil holds 
almost an absolute monopoly. 

Not only are a vast multitude without a home, but 
the home training of as great a number is the opposite 
of what it should be. A New York Supreme Court 
Judge a few years ago said: ' 'There is a large class of 
the population of New York and Brooklyn who just 
live, and to whom the rearing of two or more children 
means inevitably, a boy for the penitentiary and a girl 
for the brothel/ ' A conservative estimate places the 
number of boys in Chicago without a home, or with a 
home worse than none, at ten thousand. Other large 
cities furnish their quota. The influence of such a 
prostitution of child-life, from every standpoint, is de- 
moralizing beyond measure. A prominent Judge of 
Chicago says: "Most of these boys will turn out to be 
thieves and criminals. Each one of them forms a 
nucleus for a history of crime. ,, Thus do legions of 
boys grow into manhood without knowing anything 
but poverty and squalor, and caring for nothing but 
depravity and dissipation. 

Parents and well meaning people deplore the great 
temptations to which young men are exposed. Yet 
how few think to teach their boys to hate, and train 
them to overcome these things? They try to lubricate 
the pathway over which their sons must pass with a 
superabundance of kindness and sympathy, and forget 
that success, and usefulness, and virtue, and honor, and 
heaven and all other good things grow high and must 
be climbed after, and that the smoother the way is made 
the more apt young men are to slip and fall and miss 
the goal. The young should be taught to face and 



WHY YOUNG MEN GO WRONG. 99 

grapple with difficulties, as they are the stepping-stones 
to success; to endure trials, as they are the rounds in 
the ladder to heaven. They must learn that self-confi- 
dence and unaided efforts are necessary in climbing the 
rugged heights in life's highway. 

Young men are not properly appreciated. They are 
not given a fair chance. This is true in a hundred 
ways. Responsibilities and opportunities unquestion- 
ably make men. When these things are withheld men 
fail to reach their full development in both body and 
mind. 

The first desire that enters the mind of a new-born 
babe, regarding life, is to be a man. Becoming such 
is entirely natural. Its consummation is the highest 
achievement which finite conditions allow. It is a 
crime against humanity when any impediment is per- 
mitted to abridge the perfecting of manhood. Yet how 
often do we see, on account of errors in training, men 
whose whole natures are dwarfed; babies in pantaloons 
— petted, pampered and spoiled — willful, cross and 
peevish — five and six feet tall — ten, twenty, thirty, 
forty years old — saucy, dirty mouthed and indolent. 
Such individuals, and every generation furnishes a 
crop, cannot be expected to do more than drift with 
the wind, tide and crowd, no matter in what direction 
they may be impelled. 

The old are not always friends to the young. It is 
a difficult thing for those who have grown old to be in 
full sympathy with, and heartily encourage, their 
juniors. The man who gracefully welcomes his young 
rival with: "You must increase, but I must decrease," 
shows a rare martyrdom. A frog has no regard for a 
tadpole, having ceased to be one himself, and most 
men are similarly constituted. Old men, as a rule, dis- 
trust the capabilities, opinions and methods of young 
men 



ioo manhood's morning. 

But few children receive from their fathers the bene- 
fits of a wholesome discipline and training in ordinary 
business affairs. The wealth and wealth producing in- 
terests of America are, largely in the hands of men 
who have passed the prime of life. These men repre- 
sent the past rather than the present, or rapidly unfold- 
ing future. It is too often the case that when a man 
dies his children, for the first time, obtain an insight in- 
to the details of his business. Much of the inherited 
wealth, in consequence, proves an injury instead of a 
blessing. The eagle stirs her nest, bears her young 
upon her wings and teaches them to fly; mother goose 
gives her goslings swimming lessons in the nearest 
puddle, but thousands of young men are required to 
enter upon their life's work, and fail and go astray, be- 
cause selfish and jealous greed, and not the Golden 
Rule, has been their school-master. 

Multitudes of young men are led astray by evil com- 
panionships. Boys are taught profanity and vulgarity, 
taught to smoke and drink, taught personal defilement 
and licentiousness at a very early age. A blunt but 
most excellent man who spent his life among young 
men said: "The average boy of twelve is ruined.' ' 
Thousands are dosed during infancy with soothing 
syrup, paregoric and other opiates and alcoholics, thus 
forever perverting their appetites. Vulgarity and ob- 
scenity circulate in the streets and among school child- 
ren, and wherever boys and young men crowd together 
these things, as a rule, are freely indulged. Boys form 
bad habits and practice vice, indeed are often enslaved, 
before they know that such things ate injurious and 
wrong. 

Much of the literature of the present day is a curse 
to young men. Vulgarly illustrated periodicals and 
immoral fiction do incalculable harm. The great met- 



WHY YOUNG MEN GO WRONG. IOI 

ropolitan daily newspapers keep up a constant pano- 
rama of crime, murder, conjugal lapses, prize fights 
and sensational exaggerations. The Sunday news- 
paper is the worst of all, and it is more read by young 
men than any week-day issue. The Sunday news- 
paper is the Church's worst enemy. Many of those 
published seem to know no propriety except what the 
law demands. Such literature destroys the finer quali- 
ties of the mind, and creates morbid imaginations which 
almost inevitably lead to immoral habits. 

The New York Society for the Suppression of Vice, 
during 1895, seized 63,139 pounds of obscene books, 
-836,096 obscene pictures, 1,577,441 circulars, songs, 
&c, and 32,883 papers, and arrested over 2000 persons 
for being engaged therein. The names and addresses 
of 1 , 102,620 persons were seized. Dealers in this class 
of iiterature use every means to get the names of boys 
and young men, and the business they do is tremend- 
ous. Says Mr. Anthony Comstock: "The degrading 
of the youth of this nation by the sickening details of 
loathsome crimes, the honors of blood and thunder 
stories, the dime and half-dime novel and paper, and 
the foul oozings of defiled minds in many weekly 
papers, to say nothing of the nameless books and 
papers, is one of the highest crimes that can be com- 
mitted against the future of this nation. These brutal 
assaults upon the native innocence of youth and child- 
ren is laying burdens upon the rising generation which 
will be grievous to the future." 

11 A perpetual assault is made upon the citadel of 
thought. Secret hours are spent dreaming over the 
story of vice and crime. The receptive mind of youth 
drinks in sensational, foul and criminal story with an 
avidity that is fearful to contemplate. To those who 
have seen the results of these worse than sting of asps, 



102 MANHOOD S MORNING. 

no surprise is felt, when in after years is heard the 
moan of the aged person praying to be delivered from 
the sins of his youth. ' ' 

The millions of quack medicine pamphlets distributed > 
by "Private Disease' ' and "Lost Manhood" charlatans, 
inflict upon the minds of young men an exceedingly 
vile impression. They often create imaginary diseases 
similar to those they are advertised to cure. There 
are many books written upon immoral subjects, osten- 
sibly to teach moral lessons, but most of them have 
been written simply to sell. Nearly all of them are to 
young men. Some of these books are most excellent 
but others are highly injurious. It is almost impos- 
sible to profitably moralize upon immoral subjects. 
"It is only in exceptional natures that familiarity with 
vice increases the horror of it." It is impossible to 
build up a chaste and manly character by parading 
sensuality, even in pious language under sanctimonious 
headlines. Rot is rot, and it is never more rotten than 
when it is sandwiched between religious quotations 
and antiquated poetry. 

The discussion of the mysteries of sex, and of the 
transmission of life are subjects which, though impor- 
tant and sacred, have polluted more minds than any 
other one thing. Knowledge of these matters comes to 
ninety-nine boys in a hundred clothed in language as 
low and vile as the most depraved carnality can con- 
ceive. It would seem that the entire subject of sex 
and human biology has been handed over to the powers 
of evil to lead boys and .young men astray. The in- 
fluence of morbid teachings is blighting to the minds 
of *he young and, in consequence, thousands are not 
allowed to indulge an unmolested chaste thought nor 
experience an untainted joy. 

Parents are criminally guilty in neglecting to instruct 



WHY YOUNG MEN GO WRONG. 103 

children regarding these matters. Every father and 
mother should take their children into their confidence, 
and at a proper age, reveal to them the mysteries of 
sex, and the physiological laws pertaining thereto. 
They should not wait until it is too late, but do it 
early. This would prevent morbid curiosity, and give 
to a knowledge of these subjects the force of chastity 
and sacredness. I wish to here solemnly declare that 
if parents would intelligently and thoroughly do their 
duty regarding this matter a revolution in morals 
would ensue. When will boys and young men cease 
to learn of these things through channels which flow 
to destruction and in language that savors of the pit? 

Modern business methods and the means of livelihood 
are becoming more and more antagonistic to the suc- 
cess of new recruits. Those who are compelled to be- 
gin life without some special talent, a good supply of 
inherited wealth, or influential friends, are finding it 
extremely difficult to gain a foothold within the 
threshold of success. That desirable goal called success 
in life is to be gained only by a few. As with political 
offices, there is not enough of any business or calling 
to go around. The great mass of young men must be 
doomed to disappointment. 

The road to success is literally crowded with giants, 
compared with whom average young men are as grass- 
hoppers, and these kings and princes, monopolists and 
demagogues of trade are only too willing to deal venge- 
ance upon any and all new accessions to their ranks. 
There may be "room on top" but the fellows who are 
already there do not think so, and those who undertake 
to rival them in achievement are apt to find not only a 
vigorous but crushing opposition awaiting them. One 
of the leading business men of America has said that 
"real good chances, except to a very limited few, are a 



104 manhood's morning. 

thing of the past." It is the inevitable fate of most 
young men to wrestle with poverty and misfortune as 
a life-long struggle. 

The fact that it is becoming more intensely difficult 
for men to earn an honest and respectable living is a 
most potent source of evil. A young man cannot serve 
God, his fellow man, nor himself, unless he has useful 
employment for his hands and mind. When Christ 
was upon the earth he always fed the hungry before 
he began to preach to them, but the practical side of 
His religion has been greatly neglected. 

There are hundreds of thousands of young men in 
our land who are either unable to find work of any 
kind, or must accept such employment as exercises 
only the crude and primitive powers of mind and 
muscle, leaving the talents and intellect indolent or 
idle. An enormous number of young men are little 
more than industrial vagrants, unwillingly made so by 
vicious systems of industry over which they exercise 
no control. Eighty per cent, of those who go into 
business fail, not so much because there is no room, as 
from the fact that the room is monopolized by the favored 
few. Competition and rivalry have become so intense 
that new ventures find it not simply difficult, but im- 
possible to succeed. The veteran and the professional 
in any business or avocation know that only a few en- 
gaged therein can find a profitable basis. The great 
majority of those engaged in business must keep up a 
constant struggle to make ends meet. This strain to 
gain a livelihood falls more heavily upon young men 
than any other class. They are the greatest losers in 
lapses of trade and industry. A pronounced season of 
business depression proves a tremendous force in de- 
moralizing morals and character. At such times 
young men conceive warped ideas concerning honesty,. 



WHY YOUNG MEN GO WRONG. 105 

politics, religion and morality. They at such times 
are surplus stock. They become poverty stricken and 
their ambition, industry and talents are a glut in the 
market. They become humiliated to beggary before 
the power of capital. They are veritable slaves, and 
must accept the crumbs that fall from the table of busi- 
ness. "It is almost as depressing to beg for work as 
it is to beg for bread,' ' and thousands of young men, 
the very cream of American manhood, are constantly 
hunting a job. Nearly all young men begin life by 
seeking employment. Pre-eminently they are the wage 
earners of the nation. They are dependent upon others 
almost entirely, and in return have nothing to give but 
their services. Thomas Carlisle said: "A man will- 
ing to work and unable to iind it, is perhaps the saddest 
sight that fortune's inequality exhibits tinder the sun," 
Nothing is more crushing than enforced idleness 
thwarted ambition and unavoidable poverty. 

Young men find every foot of land taken, owned and 
occupied; every business overrun, and every depart- 
ment of industry crowded to overflowing. And those 
who occupy and monopolize the activities of the world 
are holding on, and grasping, saving and hoarding, and 
many of them denying themselves and living poor for 
the sake of dying rich. 

For every vacancy there are many applicants, and it 
is nothing unusual for several hundred young men to* 
answer the same advertisement for help. This con- 
dition of affairs causes legions of young men to resort 
to questionable and compromising employment in order 
to secure clothing, food and shelter. It exposes them to 
a multitude of snares which they would otherwise 
escape. They abandon society; they cease to go to 
church; they avoid matrimony and become clandestine 
in habits, and, with morbid ideas of life and of duty, 



106 manhood's morning. 

the)'' become permanently unstable and shiftless. 

Labor-saving machinery often operates against 
handicraft. New inventions are constantly supplant- 
ing labor. Improvements in labor-saving machinery 
render one man or boy capable of doing the work of 
two, twenty, and, in one or two instances, two hundred. 
The invention of the knitting machine affected fifty 
thousand people in England for two generations. The 
invention of the cottongin revolutionized the labor of 
the South, as it does the work of a legion of hands. 
The reaper and binder, while it was a potent factor in 
developing the West, proved a great annoyance to the 
working classes, thousands of whom depended upon 
the harvest fields as a source of employment. 

With labor-saving machinery come new methods of 
doing business, the whole trend of which is to dispense 
with labor. Everything is being done on a large scale. 
The old method of beginning in a small way and work- 
ing to the front has become almost obsolete. A be- 
ginner cannot rival those who already occupy the field. 
It don't pay to do business any longer on a small scale. 
A small manufacturer cannot make shoes, or cloth, or 
furniture for what a large manufacturer can afford to 
sell these things for. "It costs seventy-five cents per 
bushel to grow wheat in a small way, but a large wheat 
grower can land it in the market at a cost of forty-five 
cents per bushel." When wheat sells for sixty cents 
per bushel, the large farmer makes fifteen cents per 
bushel, and his poor neighbor loses fifteen cents. The 
old established and gigantic business concern can buy 
goods for less money than the beginner, handle a large 
volume for what it costs to handle a small amount, 
sell for a less profit, secure advantages by having ready 
cash in abundance, secure better rates of transporta- 
tion, keep a larger and better variety and be more 



WHY YOUNG MEN GO WRONG. 107 

liberal in every way in accommodating customers. In- 
deed everything bows to the power of money, and the 
modern giants in the realms of manufacture and 
trade are bound to be monopolists whether they so de- 
sire or not. 

The concentration of wealth, as it exists in America 
at the present time, is an extremely discouraging con- 
dition to young men. There is a certain commendable 
pride and ambition forming an essential nucleus to 
every successful life, which if crushed, or destroyed, 
makes failure almost inevitable. When a young man 
stands at the threshold of his career and realizes that 
the wealth of the nation is gleaned and garnered; that 
his life must be one continual plod, and that his only 
reward will simply be the ability to keep soul and body 
together, a tremendous conquest for evil is wrought un- 
less his manhood contains far better metal than the 
average. 

I have said in a former chapter that the best thing 
that can come to a young man is to be thrown out into 
the world. This is true. Young men need such exer- 
cise to develop the powers of their manhood. As a 
rule they are better off if they start with nothing; 
but the chance to succeed must be kept open to them. 
It is only when poverty is a doom that it is to be feared. 
When poverty becomes the inevitable fate of young 
men they are no longer free, but slaves. That which 
we call liberty and freedom only exposes them to 
temptations and privileges which lead to ruin. 

The total true valuation of the real and personal 
property of the United States is $65,037,091,197, and 
100 men own one-twentieth of this enormous sum. 
Forty thousand men own one-half of it. One million 
men own three-fourths of it. This means that sixty- 
five million of our people are worth about $16,000,000,- 



108 manhood's morning. 

ooo, or less than $250 each. 

There are over 13,000,000 families in the nation and 
one-half of them are not worth $200 each, or less than 
$40 for each individual. This means that one-half of 
our population — over 35,000,000 people — are not worth 
enough to keep them in food and clothing through a 
single winter. They are poverty stricken. These 
figures prove that a majority of the young men of the 
nation start out practically without a dollar. They 
have neither money, friends nor visible opportunity. 
They are, too many of them, tradeless, uneducated and 
unequal to meet the conditions required of them. They 
find themselves a drug in the labor market. Were 
they transformed into merchandise their money value 
would be shamefully small. Put up at auction, the 
average young man would not bring as much as a good 
horse. * They in no way compare in money value with 
the slaves of the South forty years ago. The moral 
effect of these conditions is withering, and blighting, 
and deplorable beyond conception. 

There are hundreds of thousands of young men lead- 
ing profligate and immoral lives because an infamous 
system, embracing business, commerce, industry and 
finance denies them the opportunity of earning an 
honest and respectable living. They would become 
contributing and valuable citizens, faithful and loving 
husbands and fathers; they would establish homes, 
build houses and add wealth and character to the na- 
tion were they given a chance. But the wealth of the 
nation and the power which it possesses have conspired 
against them. Capital makes its own laws and dictates 
its own terms. It demands all the profits and the un- 
conditional surrender of all its antagonists. The love 
of money and selfish greed have become master pas- 
sions. Money makes monopoly possible and monopoly 



WHY YOUNG MEN GO WRONG. 109 

!s almost always mammon- wild and heartless, and when 
it is, those who serve it must cower at its feet and be 
unto its storehouse as beggars and unto its authority as 
common slaves. 

Another obstacle to the success of young men is the 
fact that during the past few years women have fairly 
swarmed into every department of human activity. 
They form, by far, the most formidable rival against 
which the young manhood of the nation is forced to* 
contend. Women are the * 'better half," not only in 
the home, but in the store, the factory, the counting 
room and even on the platform and in the literary 
sanctum. Much is written and said about the demoral- 
izing effects of the cheap labor of foreigners; the labor 
of women is more than simply cheap — it is cheap and it 
is good. 

The rate of increase of wage-earning women between 
1880 and 1890 was about 3% times as great as the in- 
crease of workingmen. There are at present about 
4,500,000 women earning a livelihood. Many of them 
are doing what men should be doing. This condition 
gives to the idleness of young men a sad and hopeless 
phase. Nearly one-half of the money that passes over 
the counters of the legitimate business houses of our 
large cities and towns is handled by women. Man is 
hopelessly her inferior as a rival in clerical work and 
persistent service. Women are more economical, more 
attractive, quicker of perception, more accurate, rapid, 
industrious and loyal than men. Their eyes are 
keener, their brain clearer and their fingers more 
nimble, and they are instinctively more adroit. They 
can do more work, and better work, for less pay, than 
men, and in many positions are much more acceptable. 

Man can never cope with woman as a rival. Women 
are more subordinate and have less selfish interests 



no 



manhood's morning. 



than men. They apply themselves more closely to the 
work in hand, and, as a rule, are less meddlesome. 
They neither drink, smoke nor loaf, and they almost 
never prove dishonest. 

Women, as a rule, make a more thorough prepara- 
tion for a chosen pursuit than do men. Technical 
colleges and training schools for women are rapidly on 
the increase, and girls, by the legion, are preparing 
themselves for every possible legitimate vocation. 
Their services are being sought in preference to those 
of the sterner sex. Young men are in consequence 
being driven hither and thither and the moral effect is 
worthy of the most serious concern. 

Women are capturing some of the most desirable 
vocations almost en masse. Teaching, for instance, is 
rapidly passing into the hands of women. There are 
425,000 teachers in our nation and already two-thirds 
of them are women. In New Hampshire and Mas- 
sachusetts over 90 per cent, of teachers are women; in 
New York, 83 per cent.; in Rhode Island, 88, and in 
New Jersey, 81 per cent. In the sectional schools of 
Philadelphia there are 2730 women teachers and only 
63 men. At the present rate of increase of the one and 
decrease of the other, unless a reaction occurs, male 
teachers will finally be a thing of the past. 

It is estimated that there are 36,000 type- writers and 
stenographers in New York City, and the great major- 
ity of them are women. A parallel statement would 
apply to the entire nation. 
^The increase of women wage-earners, from 1880 to 
1890, was remarkable and the number continues to 
rapidly grow. During the above ten years women 
musicians and music teachers increased from 5,753 to 
34,519; artists and teachers of art, from 412 to 10.810; 
actresses, from 692 to 3,94.9; bookkeepers, clerks and 



WHY YOUNG MEN GO WRONG. I I I 

copyists, from 8, on to 92,825; journalists, from 35 to 
8S3; physicians, from 527 to 4,555; lawyers, from 5 to 
208, and clergy women , from 67 to 1235. Not many 
years ago only a few occupations were open to women , 
now the field is practically theirs. 

Not only has woman established herself as an indus- 
trial and business factor, but she is being felt in politics. 
Law-makers are beginning to yield to her demands for 
recognition and justice. c 'Equal pay for equal ser- 
vices, regardless of sex," is finding its way into politi- 
cal platforms, and, in some states, women are beginning 
to vote. She is doing it so willingly and well — and re- 
mains a woman still — that it is only a question of time 
when all barriers to her highest achievements and 
broadest activities will vanish. She will soon become 
a freeborn citizen and enjoy all its privileges. 
"Woman's sphere' ' will cease to have a limit. Unless 
young men reform, and bestir themselves, and redeem 
their wonted dominion, and marry their rivals, they 
will find themselves supplanted and ostracised from the 
realm of progressive enterprise. 

Politics does much to demoralize the nobler traits of 
young manhood. Next to religion, politics is the most 
sacred subject that men are called upon to consider, 
but it has become corrupt and debauched. A United 
States Senator has said: "The Decalogue and the 
Golden Rule have no place in a political campaign." 
Men do in political matters themselves, and condone 
in others, what would be high crime in any other phase 
of action. The right to vote should awaken a profound 
sense of duty. But it does not. Politics has become 
the common resort of unprincipled and selfish men. 
In. no other realm are corrupt methods and subtle 
treachery so effective. It furnishes a level where 
money and marketable manhood meet, and where fame 



112 MANHOOD S MORNING, 

and power can be bought with a price. 

"Strange dance! 'Tis free to Rank and Rags; 

Here no distinction matters ; 

Here Riches shakes its money bags, 

And Poverty its tatters." 

It has been stated that no less than 85,000 men have 
either directly or indirectly sold their votes at an elec- 
tion in New York City. In every locality the * 'floaters' ' 
for sale completely handicap those who reverence and 
hold sacred the ballot box. Says a prominent Ameri- 
can citizen: "Bribery and political corruption have be- 
come a portentious evil menacing the very foundations 
of our free institutions.' ' The intimidation in politics 
is such that it requires almost as much courage to with- 
stand a political campaign, by voting as one pleases, as 
it did thirty years ago to shoulder a musket and enter 
the conflict for freedom. Statesmanship has degener- 
ated into bossism, and patriotism into party ism. 

The realm of politics is so corrupt and unsavory that 
clean, self-respecting men are disposed to avoid it. 
Scheming demagogues have almost a monopoly fighting 
each other. It is too often the case that the more 
worthy and circumspect a man is the less influence, 
politically, he has. About all the influence which con- 
science and convictions exercise at the ballot box is to 
act simply as a balance wheel to keep the whole ma- 
chine from utter ruin. 

Nearly one million young men arrive at their ma- 
jority each year, and at each presidential election over 
three million vote for the first time. More than any 
other class, they are sought, importuned, coaxed, de- 
ceived, lied to, elbowed, bribed and bulldozed. 

Thus schooled, young men conclude that politics is 
a prize game; that popular government is a farce and 
that all there is in it is what can be got out of it. 



WHY YOUNG MEN GO WRONG. II3 

Thousands dismiss the principles involved from their 
minds entirely, and become as straws, leaning toward 
that party which makes the biggest display and which 
has the best prospects of success. 

The church and other organized religious forces fail 
in their duty toward young men. The fact that young 
men are not being brought into the church and under 
moral influences is apparent everywhere. In many 
places the church is almost a complete failure. Yet 
religious people are in earnest. Never was the church 
more active than now. In every department of Christ- 
ian work a special effort has been made to reach young 
men. To none has philanthropy been more liberal, 
for none have prayers been more fervent. The results 
have not, however, been encouraging. 

When we remember that most of the solid character 
and moral worth, with which society is blessed, is in- 
herited rather than acquired; when we learn how few 
— extremely few — young men who start wrong ever 
reform and become earnest, useful Christians, we must 
admit that the influence of religious organizations is 
deplorably slight. Religion of the convicting quality 
and converting quantity seems to be wanting. We 
sing * 'Ninety and Nine" to one sheep, while the 
Ki ninety and nine" are out "on the desert bare." 
There is a great lack of practical force and spiritual 
power somewhere. 

The work of religion is greater than the work of 
science, of education or of culture, greater than reforms 
or revolutions, than politics or political parties, than 
the pen or the press. Its work is greater than all of 
these things together. Its mission is to uplift and save 
the world. 

Religious institutions have become too much en- 
grossed in their own internal affairs. They dress 



114 manhood's morning. 

parade, but seldom fight. They try to resave the saved 
rather than the lost; to make people believe exactly- 
rather than trust implicitly. They spend their energy 
in the endeavor to make the good better and the better 
perfect; in salting the salt; in directing the way to their 
own pilgrims, leaving the lost sheep, for whom Christ 
died, to shift for themselves. The elder brother, the 
upright son, who has saved his money and who pays 
high pew rent, is feasted upon fatted calf, while the 
unfortunate prodigal is allowed to feed upon husks and 
spiritually starve. 

There are several million young men in America who 
never hear the gospel preached. What little they learn 
of the subject of religion is gained by coming in con- 
tact with professing Christians. What they see and 
hear is so commonplace and disappointing that they 
relieve their minds of the subject entirely. When re- 
ligion ceases to be aggressive, enthusiastic and in 
living earnest, young men, at least, forget that it has 
any special claims upon them. 

Many good people imagine that pure, genuine, un- 
adulterated gospel truth is not just the thing for young 
men, and a tremendous effort is made to make religion 
attractive, entertaining and even amusing in order to 
attract them. Addresses and religious meetings for 
young men are expected to possess at least three 
features, — they must be ' 'spicy, ent ertaining and short.' ' 
When young men become Christians they are too often 
made into hothouse plants instead of shining lights; 
the}' are burdened with advice instead of work; they 
are not accepted as soundly converted until they have 
been well trained in the doctrines of some particular 
creed. 

As a rule young men have planted, deep within them, 
an exalted reverence for sacred and religious things. 



WHY YOUNG MEN GO WRONG. 115 

They need nothing so much as gospel truth and christ- 
ian consistency among those with whom they do busi - 
ness and associate. They should come in contact with 
these things, not simply on Sunday, but seven days in 
the week. 

Young men hate sham. Nothing so disgusts them 
as hypocrisy. They see religion as it exists in the 
lives of its followers. They demand better examples 
than they meet, and in this they are not unreasonable. 
There is a beam in the eye of the church. None know 
this better than young men. The church has grown 
lax regarding vice and sin. Discipline has become al- 
most a dead letter. Professing Christians betray their 
faith; as a consequence young men lose confidence in 
the church, and refuse to be influenced by its mem- 
bers. The standard of morals within the church is too 
near the level! outside of it. The utterances of the 
pulpit so fits the brethren that sinners forget that they 
are being preached to. With the exception of intem- 
perance, the destroying vices of young men are seldom 
referred to by the church. For many years the church 
has labored diligently for the cause of established 
orthodoxies and the intellectual standards of christian 
belief, but she has signally failed to cry aloud against 
the vices and evil habits of young men. She is prone 
to forget that young men are the hope of the church, 
and the pulpit stands speechless while evil habits are 
sweeping them into perdition like dead flies. 

During recent years there has been a well-marked 
tendency for mankind to divide into widely separated 
classes. Evil always follows such a condition. Not 
only have wealth and avarice become organized, but 
selfishness and pride, as well. The rich and the poor, 
the strong and the weak, the fortunate and the un- 
fortunate, the learned and the ignorant are inclined to 



Il6 manhood's morning. 

stand apart and grow more exclusive. These condi- 
tions make vividly conspicuous everywhere man's in- 
humanity to man. A warfare, constant and relentless, 
exists, in some form, between these extremes. The 
fortunate preach contentment to the unfortunate, and 
the less favored preach the Golden Rule in return, and 
both detest the precepts of the other. Class dis- 
tinction, wrought out of human experiences, has 
been the curse of civilization. It is the apparent doom 
of Europe to-day. It is the underlying basis of most 
of the struggles in our own land. 

"0! Why should the strong oppress the weak 

Till the latter goes to the wall? 
On this earth of ours, with its thorns and flowers, 

There is room enough for all." 

The lines of conflict between the high and the low 
constantly grow more apparent. Should we discover 
that such conditions are compatible with the spirit of 
liberty, it would only prove that our boasted liberty is 
a misnomer. 

Widely separated class distinctions, in any phase 
of life, are to be deplored, because such conditions al- 
ways handicap genuine progress. Mankind is a com- 
mon brotherhood, and conditions and systems which 
bring all classes of people together in harmony must 
prevail. Science, Education and Social Agencies have 
become active factors in the world's progress. New 
conditions confront us. A new era of progress is close 
at hand. Superficial and narrow views are no longer 
effective. The best welfare of all, and not selfish 
factions — too long the American octopus — must prevail. 

Scientific workers were never so closely allied to 
progress, health and happiness as at present. That 
man is his brother's keeper has become a scientific fact. 
Scientists have become the kings of earth. Knowledge 



WHY YOUNG MEN GO WRONG. ^117 

of health, sanitary matters, hygiene and thousands of 
other economic branches, is forcing a new era. Science 
is proving that vice is an organic disease, reaching back 
into ancestry and permeating society at large. Educa- 
tion has told us that crime and vice are the work of 
criminals and vicious men; but science will prove that 
criminals and vicious men are the result of crime and 
vice. 

Education has neglected the moral development of 
boys and young men. Educational methods and ideas 
should be the most progressive of all, yet the longest 
and narrowest and deepest ruts in history have been 
made by educators. For four centuries Education has 
been straining the memory, instead of training the mind 
and will; burdening the brain with antiquated data,, in- 
stead of developing it into its highest possibilities. 

The great teacher, Froebel, illustrated a mcral as 
well as intellectual principle when he said: "All that 
does not grow out of one's inner being oppresses and 
defaces the individuality of man; instead of developing 
nature it makes it a caricature." Shall we never cease 
to stamp human nature, even in childhood, as we do 
coins, instead of aiding it to develop itself according to 
the natural laws of life? 

Social influences lead multitudes of young men 
astray. The social faculty is perhaps the strongest 
power that actuates life. Society is the union of all 
opinions, motives, habits and desires, and its force is 
irresistible. The kings and princes of society rule the 
world. Wherever they go mankind is sure to follow. 
The social realm stands next to religion in importance. 
It is the duty of organized society to destroy the evil 
influences of the theatre, the ballroom, the club, the 
billiard and pool room, the saloon and the immoral re- 
sort. Future history must be chiefly social. 



Il8 manhood's morning. 

The general drift of fashionable life is toward a com- 
promise of morals. That high reverence for chastity 
and virtue, which is the only safe standard, is being 
constantly assailed. There is no large city, and few 
large towns, where nightfall does not open clandestine 
resorts where boys and young men are made welcome 
and ruined. These places touch the social side of 
young men and capture them wholesale. A prominent 
educator says: "More bo}^s and young men are ruined 
by questionable social retreats in our cities than by the 
saloons. ' ' The teacher of a class of young men in a 
city Sunday School, sometime since, discovered that 
one of her scholars was visiting some low dens of 
in : quity. She decided to investigate the habits of her 
entire class and found that every one was doing the 
very same thing. Were the truth unearthed, many 
other teachers would be equally surprised. That such 
influences live and thrive and multiply and grow more 
alluring, more active and desperate, should not mark 
the progress of civilization. That the socially gifted 
do so little to counteract such influences by whole- 
some, elevating recreation, shows a serious flaw in our 
social system. 

Legions of young men go wrong because it is so 
easy. They are ruined because the way is so short. 
It takes very little to wreck a life. "The worst man 
is seven-eighths exactly like the best man. ' ' A disease 
of one organ sickens the whole body, and a flaw at 
some vital point of the moral economy is ruin. The 
worst rascal, rogue, or reprobate is often the best and 
brightest man warped or weak at some vital spot. The 
difference between the criminal and the judge, the 
prisoner and the jailor, may be extremely slight. The 
dividing line is crossed by thousands unconsciously. 
Vices are too strong to be broken before they are great 



WHY YOUNG MEN GO WRONG. I 1 9 

enough to be seen. "It is only three steps to ruin." 
The first step is subtle and short. It is simply a 
change of ideals, a slight deflection of the vision, a 
revelry of the imagination, a trivial turn of the foot- 
steps. Drummond says: "When we see a man fall from 
the top of a five story building we know death is sure 
before he falls a foot." The same law applies to the 
moral nature. When a young man allows his energies 
to cool, and he yawns and drawlingly says, "Oh, well, 
life leads to nothing worth striving after," he has taken 
the first step to ruin; he has lost his grip upon his 
highest possibilities. Nine- tenths of the lost were 
ruined just at this point. 

When it is remembered that all evil influences work 
together in absolute harmony, that in their union their 
strength is multiplied, then, and then only, is their 
power appreciated. The forbidden fruits of the modern 
Eden are of endless variety. No taste, fancy or desire 
is allowed to remain unsatisfied. Temptations were 
never so abundant, never so subtle, never so powerful 
as now, and perhaps young men were never so poor- 
ly equipped to withstand them. By inheritance, by 
birth, by education and by experience the young men 
of America are morally weak. They are, to a deplor- 
able degree, willing prey. While this is true there was 
never such a determined and persistent effort to ensnare 
them. More than ever before capital is invested, 
energy enlisted, and business ability arrayed in schemes 
and enterprises to allure and ruin them. Young men 
have become a necessity — a staple commodity— in the 
markets of sin. Satan has a money interest in them. 
In the conflict between right and wrong for the char- 
actei and souls of young men, wrong occupies the 
vantage-ground. To the interests of wrong they are a 
source of profit; to the cause of right, they are too often 



120 MANHOOD S MORNING. 

an expense. Wrong panders to their appetites and 
passions, while right demands their self-denial and for- 
bearance; wrong is satisfied with indolence and ex- 
travagance, while right demands industry and economy; 
wrong is pleased with ignorance, while right insists 
upon knowledge* wrong gives what is wanted, right 
allows only what is needed; wrong can thrive upon 
weaknesses, while right depends upon strength; wrong 
accepts young men as they are, shows them the world 
and the glories thereof, and says: "All these things 
will I give thee," while right demands a clean heart 
and a new creature; wrong gives freedom and license, 
right enforces law and imposes duty; w r rong is willing 
to deceive, cheat, beguile, mislead, lie, gull, tickle, 
please, promise everything, or grant anything, while 
right is honest, truthful and just; wrong is reached by 
a thousand paths, right is reached by only one. 

While evils are legion and working in harmony day 
and night, seven days in the week, the forces in the 
cause of right are confused by divisions and frustrated 
through lack of zeal and courage. Throughout the 
entire realm of human influences are found causes, 
powerful and persistent, which impel young men to 
ruin. The pathways downward fairly bewilder with 
music that enamors and with excitement that enchants. 
Subtle enticements and seductive charms, mantraps, 
soothing wiseacres, artful wiles, wolves in sheep's cloth- 
ing, blind and perverse teachers, deceptive by-ways, 
false beliefs, perambulating, devouring demons, in- 
timidating and tyrannical powers flourish, fascinate and 
hold dominion upon every side. While the young men 
of America, thoughtless and credulous, become willing 
victims of these beguiling influences, those who are 
fortunate enough to escape too often stand aside and 
view the havoc wrought with complaisant supineness, 



WHY YOUNG MEN GO WRONG. 12 1 

too self-righteous to feel implicated and too selfish and 
cowardly to lend a helping hand. 



Can one go upon hot coals, and his feet not be burned? 
* Solomon. 

"He cannot plead, his throat is choked, 
Sin holds him in her might; 
And self-condemned, he slideth down 
To an eternal night." 

" Those who dance must pay the piper." 

I doubt whether the ferocity of the battlefield is as 
merciless as is the remorseless onslaught of unscrupulous 
passion. Julia Ward Howe. 

Secret sins and kindred vices yearly ruin more constitu- 
tions than hard work, severe study, hunger, cold, privation 
and disease combined. ' /. H. Kellogg -, M. D. 

Man is first startled by sin; then it becomes pleasing, then 
easy, then delightful, then frequent, then habitual, then con- 
firmed. Then man is impenitent, then obstinate, then he is 
damned. — Jeremy Taylor* 

Do we not all know what it is to be punished by Nature 
for disobeying her? We have looked round the wards of a 
hospital, a prison, or a madhouse, and seen there Nature at 
work squaring her accounts with sin. Henry Drummond. 

To think of youth's bright hopes and precious innocence 
— of love of truth and purity — of honor and womanhood — of 
genius and talent — of all goodly gifts of person and graces of 
mind — of all sweet affections and aspirations gone down — 
down into the abyss of perdition, blotted out or spoiled — ah! 
this is, by awful eminence, the horror of the world. Holland. 

"What havoc hast thou made, foul monster, sin?" 

In the great majority of things, habit is a greater plague 
than ever afflicted Egypt. John Foster. 

"Rogues differ little. Each began as a disobedient son." 

"The meanest wretch that ever trod, 
The deepest sunk in guilt and sorrow, 

Might stand erect 

In self respect, 
And share the teeming world tomorrow." 



CHAPTER VI. 



PAYING THE PIPER. 



The forces which have been shaping the history o! 
our nation during recent years have made but little 
noise. The defenders of the flag have exploded very 
little powder, and the destroying elements in our midst 
have been wont to operate in seclusion and in silence. 
Waving harvest fields, laden with abundance, have 
made beautiful the face of our land, and the engross- 
ing activities of manufacture and commerce are seen 
upon every side. We have been filled with the com- 
forting thought that America is an invulnerable em- 
bodiment of peace, prosperity and power. 

A nation, however, does not consist simply of an ex* 
tensive wealth producing territory and a multiplying 
number of people. It is the intelligence, the industry, 
the character and the morals of individuals that decide 
the stability and insure the permanency of a nation. 

The evil habits, vice, and immoralities which prevail 
to such an extent among young men cannot exist with- 
out a corresponding evil and destructive influence upoa 
the happiness and welfare of the people. 

Only to the smallest degree is it possible to know 
how injurious and destructive to happiness, success and 
life are the evil habits to which so vast a multitude are 
addicted. People generally are imbued with the im- 
pression that at a certain age it is to be expected that 



124 MANHOOD S MORNING. 

young men will sow a crop of wild oats, and that ip 
due season they will return to rectitude and no harm 
come from it. Men and women cry aloud against 
every other form of viciousness, except those sins which 
belong especially to young men. Regarding these a 
strange silence prevails. A peculiar and voluntary 
charity shields this unsavory realm of iniquity, and it 
is allowed to strut through the land blighting, killing 
and damning — a perpetual devastating carnage — and 
yet, aside from the curse of strong drink, we hear but 
little of the subject. 

I feel fully certain that questions relative to intem- 
perance, vice and immorality belong almost exclusive- 
ly to young men. Justice demands that my position be 
made plain at this point. I have maintained that the 
period of young manhood is different from that which 
follows. In nothing is the difference so strongly marked 
as in the matter of habit. Men who have grown old 
in habit will not, as a rule, e;ver change. There are,, 
for illustration, thousands of excellent Christian men 
using tobacco. Its use with them has become almost 
organic. These men have my sympathy, not my cen- 
sure. Most of them deplore their habit but it holds 
them in bondage. My father was an inveterate tobacco 
user, but if he caught either of his three boys using it,, 
the rod, well applied, was the penalty. The fact that 
I do not use it is to his credit; the fact that I hate its 
use is a natural inheritance. Perhaps it was not wrong 
for him to use it, but it would be wicked for me to do 
so. There are multitudes of men, noble Christian men, 
who have grown old in the habit. They will never 
abandon the habit, perhaps it never has and never will 
become a matter of right and wrong with them; but for 
young men to imitate them is entirely different. The 
light, the science, the Christianity, and the needs of this 



PAYING THE PIPER. 1 25 

new age pronounce these things injurious and wrong, 
and to become victims to them is sin. 

We are told that ' 'The wages of sin is death. ' ' When 
death and the conditions which lead to it are seen 
upon every side, searching for the cause becomes a par- 
amount duty. It is claimed, by competent observers, 
that the American people are not living more than two- 
thirds as long as they should. This means that on an 
average more than fifteen years are cut off from each 
human life. Man can no longer afford to live in either 
ignorance or error. If advantages lie hidden before 
him, it is a duty to grapple for them; if pitfalls bestride 
his pathway, it is wicked to blindly fall therein. 

The time has come when timid, cowardly language 
should cease, and when young men should be told the 
truth regarding vice and destroying habits. Wherever 
there lives the soul of a patriot, there should be found 
a fearless champion of a cleaner, purer manhood. 
From one border of our nation to the other an aggres- 
sive and relentless warfare should be waged until a 
clearer and more wholesome moral atmosphere prevails 
among the young manhood of the nation. 

Irreverence, disrespect, vulgarity, obscenity, the use 
of tobacco, intemperance, immorality, personal defile- 
ment, licentiousness, gambling and profligacy are in 
their very nature far reaching and destroying. All ot 
these evils are associated and work together, and thus 
united, they form the gigantic and devastating curse of 
the age. War, pestilence and famine combined sink 
into insignificance when compared with the evil habits 
and wicked practices of young men. They are direct 
and powerful destroyers of the race, and wherever they 
prevail manhood becomes impaired in both body and 
mind, and depraved in motive power and will. Vice, 
like misery, seeks companionships, and when it gains 



126 manhood's morning. 

a foothold in one form it never rests until every mor- 
bid appetite and evil desire have wrought their deadly 
work. 

Profanity and Vulgarity are twins. As a rule, they 
are the first-born among the vices. There may be 
men who are victims of these habits and yet maintain 
a high degree of moral integrity, but they are few. 
The influence of either is vile and dastardly. They 
are the first lessons taught in the devil's school, and to 
thousands they are the first steps on the road to perdi- 
tion. They are Satan's gift cards and cost neither 
money, thought nor effort. To the victim they bring 
neither pleasure, satisfaction nor profit. Why men are 
profane and vulgar is as astounding as it is incompre- 
hensible. That so many young men indulge : ti these 
habits only proves that they are so filled with the spirit 
of sacrifice that they are willing to work for the devil 
without pay sooner than be idle. 

Nothing is more universally condemned than these 
two vices. They not only pollute the intellect, but the 
character and life. They rapidly become fixed habits, 
and are among the most difficult to overcome. They 
corrupt the imagination and more young men are ruined 
from evil imaginations than from passion. Napoleon 
said: "Imagination rules the world," and surely it 
moulds the individual character. These habits breed 
coarseness and bad manners; they destroy the finer 
sensibilities; they turn chivalry into cowardice, and 
transform clean, noble-hearted men into scandal-pedd- 
lers and virtue-pirates. Vulgarity is an unfailing sign 
of a depraved conscience, and profanity of a guilty one. 
Chaste and refined language never mix, and seldom 
alternate with debasing speech, and from such elevat- 
ing thoughts stand aloof. These vices quickly rob 
young men of self respect; God is driven from the 



PAYING THE PIPER. 1 27 

heart, and the door opened for all manner of evils. 
Those so addicted cease to go to church, sneak out of 
the Sunday School and sheepishly avoid every approach 
of refinement and virtue. Vulgarity is the passport to 
the brothel as profanity is to the saloon. Vulgarity 
leads young men by the legion into self-defilement and 
licentiousness, and profanity mocks and stifles their 
remorse. The vulgar and profane man is more than 
half ruined, and the remainder of the way is the devil's 
play -ground. Profanity and vulgarity form the hot- 
bed in which revel not only sensuous desires but wan- 
ton practices. They coil their slimy forms about the 
purity of womanhood and the virtue of manhood, and 
drag them into the pit of carnal indulgence, the end of 
which is disgrace and hell. A young man saturated 
with vulgarity and profanity breeds more contagion 
than if he had the small-pox. He will contaminate 
and infest an entire neighborhood in an incredibly short 
time. One such young man will do more damage than 
a dozen topers or a score of thieves. That these two 
vices have become fixed habits in our national life is 
one of the nation's most lamentable misfortunes. 

The evil effects of tobacco are deep-seated and sure. Es- 
pecially is this true when it is used by the young. The 
strength and usefulness of young men depend upon the 
full and perfect development of their physical, intellect- 
ual and moral natures. Nothing interferes with this 
more surely than the use of tobacco. L,ike all nar- 
cotics, its use has a deadening effect upon the moral 
sense, especially in young persons. Among all the 
evil habits to which Christian nations are addicted the 
use of tobacco in its direful effects surely takes a front 
rank. Liquor is the only agent that equals it and this 
might be seriously questioned. From much observa- 
tion and careful study of the subject, my own opinion 



128 manhood's morning. 

is that tobacco is the' greatest enemy to the human 
race in the world, at the present time. The subtleness 
of its charm, the insidiousness of its action, the almost 
universal manner in which it is used and the deep-seated 
and lasting effects which surely follow its use, have no 
parallel regarding any other agent, in human history. 

The use of tobacco clogs the intellect, shatters the 
nerves, lessens the ambition, saps the brain, interferes 
with bodily development and mental vigor. It creates 
a thirst for strong drink, causes nervous dyspepsia, 
heart disease, sore throat, cancer of the mouth, throat 
and stomach, nasal catarrh, insanity and imbecility, 
and saps the foundations of manliness and virtue. All 
drunkards, tramps, criminals, loafers, dead-beats, and 
the scum of the earth use it. Nothing will so surely 
destroy the sense of honor and make liars and thieves 
of boys and young men as the use of tobacco. The 
record of a certain court shows that out of 700 convicts, 
600 were there for crimes committed under the influence 
of liquor, and 500, of the 600, testified that the use of 
tobacco brought them to the drink habit. In France 
its use is prohibited in military schools. Observations 
made at Harvard, Yale and Princeton Colleges prove 
conclusively that no student who uses tobacco is ever 
at his best, physically or mentally. 

I have never known but one physician of prominence 
to publicly recommend the use of tobacco, and he has 
spent two years of his life in an asylum on account of 
dissipation. Hon. Cornelius Walford, author of the 
Insurance Cyclopedia, one of the world's best authori- 
ties, says: "I believe tobacco to be a more insidious 
stimulant than alcoholic beverages. It can be indulged 
iM more constantly without visible degradation; but 
surely it saps the powers of the mind. Until mankind 
can rise above beer and tobacco, the race will remain 



PAYING THK PIPER. 1 29 

degraded as it now is, mentally, socially and physical- 
ly/ ' Says the eminent Dr. Willard Parker: ' 'Tobacco 
is ruinous in our schools and colleges, dwarfing both 
mind and body. Tobacco is doing more harm in the 
world than rum. It is destroying the race." Prof. 
Spencer, of The Spencerian Business College, who has 
had under him over 50,000 scholars, says that the 
effects of tobacco are "premature age, shattered nerves, 
mental weakness, stunted growth and general physical 
and moral degeneracy/ ' Says Prof. Mead, of Oberlin 
College: "The tobacco habit tends to deaden the sense 
of honor. ' ' Dr. Stowell, author of Essentials of Health, 
says: "Deceit seems to be a born companion of the 
boy and his cigarette. Boys who would not be guilty 
of telling a falsehood on other matters, soon find it easy 
to lie about this habit/ ' At a meeting of the leading 
physicians of Philadelphia it was declared that, 
"Cigarette smoking is one of the vilest and most de- 
structive evils that ever befell the youth of any country; 
its direct tendency is to a deterioration of the race." 
Dr. W. Seaver, of Yale College, who has made careful 
and extended observations, says: "No young man can 
use tobacco without injuring himself seriously." Dr. 
A. Arthur Reade, in his Symposium, Study and Stimu- 
lants, says: "It is truly remarkable that out of twenty 
men of Science only two smoke, one of whom, Prof. 
Huxley, did not commence until forty years of age." 
Regarding its use by young men he adds: "To them 
it is bad in any form. It poisons their blood, it stunts 
their growth, weakens the mind and makes them lazy." 
The eminent author, J. D. Steele, Ph. D., says: "The 
young man who uses tobacco deliberately diminishes 
the possible energy with which he might commence the 
work of life." The testimony of Prof. J. A. Kellogg 
is: "The results of novice are more certainly trans- 



130 manhood's morning. 

mitted to posterity;' ' and that, "the children of such 
men are robbed of their rightful patrimony and enter up- 
on life with a weakly vital organism, with a system pre- 
disposed to disease and destined to premature decay." 
In his Anatomy of Melancholy, Dr. Burton declares: 
"As it is used by most men it is a plague, a mischief, 
a violent purger of goods, lands and health; hellish, 
devilish; the ruin and overthrow of body and soul. 1 ' 
The evidence of Thomas Jefferson is: "The culture of 
tobacco is productive of infinite wretchedness." 

The American Indians, though in some repects 
favored, are, and for centuries have been, a savage 
race. They are without self-respect, ambition, or 
power to appreciate civilization. They are cold-hearted, 
revengeful and possessed of an uncontrollable appetite 
for whiskey. As a cause for their peculiar and appar- 
ent hopeless condition, tobacco stands almost alone. 
Indeed its use has been -their one great vice. 

Hundreds of women die every year, and thousands 
become nervous wrecks through sleeping with tobacco 
pickled husbands. In no instance are the sins of the 
fathers more surely visited upon the children than in 
tobacco using. It produces in the offspring an ener- 
vated and unsound constitution which lessens the physi- 
cal resistance and invites disease and death. It not 
only leads young men to the drink habit but holds 
them there. Signing the temperance pledge, in almost 
every case, proves a failure unless tobacco is included 
in the reform. 

In thousands of cases where liquor is recorded, in 
newspapers and courts of justice, as the cause of crime, 
tobacco, and not alcohol, is really the guilty substance. 
In many cases it is doubly guilty — it leads to the drink 
habit and then makes the drunkard criminally desper- 
ate. My observation leads me to believe that 'the to- 



PAYING THE PIPER. 13I 

bacco habit is more difficult to abandon than the liquor 
habit. 

The fact that a few men use tobacco without appar- 
ent injury is no argument in its favor. Some men are 
invulnerable. They are not impressionable. They can 
go among small-pox or cholera; they can live amidst 
malaria or contagion with impunity. Their power of 
resistance is perfect; but such men are few. They be- 
long to the frugal, solid stock of the past, rather 
than to the active, nervous temperaments of the present 
generation. 

The effects of Intemperance are constant and terrible. 
A conservative estimate of the annual number of deaths 
caused by intemperance in our nation is at least one 
hundred thousand. The majority of this vast army 
are young men. They represent the noblest, brightest, 
most lovable and promising of our manhood. It is 
nothing less than murder, wholesale, public and de- 
liberate. 

The use of alcoholic liquors causes a long list of dis- 
eases and morbid conditions which not only destroy 
life but cause untold misery among the people. Their use 
greatly lessens physical resistance. Those who drink 
stand surgical diseases badly. Such diseases as typhoid 
fever, pneumonia, consumption, rheumatism, dysentery 
and other debilitating maladies prove a scourge among 
the intemperate. 

The use of alcoholic liquors directly causes apoplexy, 
paralysis, vertigo, both hardening and softening of the 
brain, delirium tremens, dementia, insanity, consump- 
tion, congestion of the lungs, fatty degeneration, 
nervous and valvular diseases of the heart, diseases of 
the blood, dyspepsia, catarrh and ulceration of the 
stomach and bowels, congestive sclerosis or hardening 
of the liver, diabetes and Bright' s disease. 



132 manhood's morning. 

Not only does it cause organic disease in every organ 
of the body, but it enormously increases the death rate 
among those who seem to escape visible evil results 
from its use. It not only kills openly and boldly, but 
gradually and secretly. The death rate among those 
exposed to the temptation to drink, while at their daily 
work, is more than twice as great as among those not 
so exposed. The death rate among temperate young 
men between the ages of fourteen and twenty-eight is 
not over six to ten per 1000, while among those ad- 
dicted to drink it reaches from fifteen to thirty per ioco. 
Therefore, if one-half of the young men of America 
drink, it means that over 90,000 young men fall, every 
year, victims of the drink habit. The death rate among 
bar tenders is three times as great as among those en- 
gaged in agricultural pursuits. Those who have 
studied the subject claim that from eight to ten per 
cent, of the deaths occuring among men is due to the 
use of liquor. 

It might be questioned, however, whether or not 
death is the worst result of intemperance. It is often, 
apparently, a greater curse to the living than to those 
whom it destroys. To none does it prove so great an 
evil as to young men. No drinking young man can 
attain to his best, either in body, mind or will. In be- 
coming slaves to the habit young men forfeit self-re- 
spect and the confidence of others. No matter what 
may be a young man's attainments, abilities or ambition 
if his reputation must be labeled, "but he drinks," the 
chances are all arrayed against him. Those who are 
intemperate are tacitly branded, not by law, but by 
society, by opportunity and by business enterprise. 
Nothing so destroys the higher possibilities of. young 
men. It forces them into lives ot menial drudgery, 
disgrace and poverty. Nothing so thoroughly destroys 



PAYING THE PIPER. 1 33 

their usefulness, or so quickly carries them beyond the 
realm of opportunity and possible success. The effects 
of alcohol upon the mind are ruinous. It perverts and 
weakens the memory, it sours the disposition, it arouses 
jealousy and suspicion and inflames the temper; it 
drives out the man and enthrones the brute and the 
beast. The young man who drinks becomes, in part, 
at least, a moral imbecile, and is never to be trusted. 
Such persons voluntarily ostracise themselves from 
elevating society and from desirable and ennobling avo- 
cations, and being by individually demoralized, they 
seek positions beneath where they would otherwise be- 
long, and thus betray and embarrass the whole scope 
of enterprise and labor. 

Personal and Social impurity is a formidable scourge. 
God intended that the bodies of young men should be 
clean, and that their lives should be pure, and there are 
no sins upon which He looks with more disfavor than 
upon personal defilement and licentiousness. 

Secret sin is the greatest curse of blossoming man- 
hood. It takes the glow from the cheek, the bright- 
ness from the eye and the life-blood from the veins. 
Nothing so destroys the will-power and vital energy. 
Under its influence the habits become slovenly, the 
appetites morbid and perverted, the muscles flabby and 
weak, the disposition insipid, the spirits melancholic 
and the whole demeanor sheepish, reclusive and em- 
barrassed. It weakens the intellect and impairs the 
memory; the blood becomes thin and chilled and the 
countenance expressionless, betraying a guilty con- 
science and a depraved mind. It takes the native skill 
from the hand and the appreciation of the beautiful 
from the mind. Such young men lose personal mag- 
netism and attractiveness, society fails to appreciate 
them, and they avoid refined and elevating companion- 



134 MANHOOD S MORNING. 

ships. Thus isolated they become willing and helpless 
victims to every form of vice. The habit leads to in- 
sanity, melancholy, sterility and general decay. It is 
thorough in its work, and finally destroys every faculty 
and every virtue which adorns and makes attractive, 
forceful and noble the estate of manhood. Says a 
famous writer: ' 'Once the habit is formed, and the mind 
has positively suffered from it, there would be almost 
as much hope of the Ethiopian changing his skin, or the 
leopard his spots, as the victim abandoning his vice. 
The sooner he sinks to his degraded rest, the better for 
himself and the world.' ' 

The evil effects oi licentiousness are constant and sure. 
The devil palms off wanton indulgence as the very 
essence of worldly pleasure, and too many young men, 
allured by the cruel deception, waste their substance 
following strange women. They "go straightway as 
an ox goeth to the slaughter' ' only to ' 'mourn at the 
last when their flesh and their bodies are consumed." 
, When a young man gains a carnal knowledge of a 
woman he surely ignites the flames of an earthly hell. 
No matter whether it be gained by deceiving some 
pure, but trusting and affectionate girl, or by following 
the way of some professional harlot, it will invariably 
prove an indellible stain upon the nobler constituents 
of character, and the memory of the deed will forever 
gnaw the conscience. Carnality injures a young man 
just as much as it does a young woman. The fact that 
he is more likely to escape public censure only tends to 
transform him into a more foolish brute, and into a 
more villainous and cunning knave. When such a 
man leads some pure sweet girl to the marriage altar, 
the 'ghost of his sin will be there. When he drinks 
from the fountains of wedded bliss it will pollute, with 
bitter dregs, the sacred cup. When his children play 



PAYING THE PIPER. 1 35 

and sing around his fireside, their innocent voices will 
meet a haunting and blighting echo within his soul. 

By leading impure and dissolute lives, young men not 
only ruin their own health and shorten their ow r n lives 
but threaten the degeneracy of the entire race. Until a 
higher standard of public morals prevails, it will not be 
safe to consider young men other than enemies to society 
and a constant menace to the American home. The 
effects of their sins are a scourge to the race which will 
inevitably grow more deep-seated and disastrous until 
the ravages are stayed by a social reform. 

No diseases are so loathsome and incurable as those 
contracted through sexual transgressions. The man 
polluted by venereal disease is a walking contagion. 
His presence is a constant danger to health and life. 
There are, all the time, thousands of young men in 
our nation whose bodies are filled with consuming 
rottenness — vile, accursed and communicative — the re- 
sult of sensuality. If they were cattle, instead of 
human beings, the health authorities, in behalf of 
public safety, would demand that they be killed and 
their polluted carcasses burned or buried beyond the 
reach of buzzards. It would not be safe to tan their 
hides for shoe-leather. But such men court and marry 
pure, innocent girls, and redse families of children and 
give to them an enfeebled vitality and the germs of 
loathsome disease as an inheritance. 

In some countries of the world the ravages of venereal 
diseases have risen to the magnitude of a plague. 
During a single year there were admitted to the hos- 
pitals of the United Kingdoms of Europe 21,965 cases 
of venereal disease, and in over 1 1,000 cases the malady 
showed itself in its very worst form. That it prevails 
in our own land, chiefly in large cities and manufactur- 
ing centres, every physician knows. It is found among 



136 manhood's morning. 

all conditions of people and visits alike the hovel and 
the palace. Nothing is more terrible than the remorse 
which these diseases are sure to bring. Quacks reap a 
golden harvest from the victims — in their filth of body 
and ignominy of soul these terror-stricken wretches 
swarm around arrant fraud like moths about a lighted 
candle. 

Upon nothing has God pronounced judgments more 
severe than upon licentiousness. The Bible is full of 
denunciations regarding it. "Be not deceived' ' says 
the Apostle: ' 'neither fornicators nor adulterers shall 
inherit the kingdom of God." Says the wise man: 
4 'None that go unto her return again;' ' they shall 
"mourn at the last when their flesh and their body are 
consumed." The bold and practical Apostle said: 
"When lust hath conceived it bringeth forth sin, and 
sin, w T hen it is finished, bringeth forth death." Well 
might the inscription, which Dante has inscribed over 
the gate of hell, be placed over the pathway of every 
young man who seeks for pleasure in sensuous indul- 
gences: 

"Through me you pass to the city of woe, 
Through me you pass into eternal pain, 
Through me, among the people lost for aye. 
* * * * * * 

All hope abandon ye who enter here." 

Sexual indulgence is never necessary for health. 
While it is not claimed that this is a medical book, 
I wish to discuss this subject from a professional stand- 
point. Thousands of young men are led to believe 
that their manly vigor and inherent passions require 
an outlet, and that sexual indulgences are conducive to 
health. Physicians, who have not studied the subject 
deeply, can, perhaps, be found who would sanction such 
a theory. No impression is more false. A chaste and 
continent life favors, in every way, good health. More 



PAYING THE PIPER. 1 37 

than this; it is promotive of the highest strength, beauty 
and personal magnetism. 

During the past few months, in order to gain the 
opinion of the Medical Profession upon this subject, 
a large number of eminent physicians have been inter- 
viewed. Their unanimous opinion is in favor of a 
continent life. A Declaration has recently been signed 
by over fifty physicians, occupying prominent positions 
as medical men and as Professors in colleges, stating 
"that chastity — a pure continent life, for both sexes, — 
is consonant with the best conditions of physical, men- 
tal and moral health.' ' Among the long list of signa- 
tures appear such names as D. B. St. John Rosa, M. D., 
L,L,. D., President New York Academy of Medicine; 
George F. Shrady, M. D., Consulting Chief, Hospitals 
of Health Department, N. Y. City, and Editor, Medical 
Record) Prof. John H. Billings. M. D.; Prof. Ephriam 
Cutter, M. D.; Prof. John A. Wyeth, M. D., New 
York Polyclinic; Andrew H. Smith, M. D., New York 
Presbyterian Hospital; Prof. Henry Dwight Chapin, M. 
D., of New York Post- Graduate Medical School and 
Hospital; Prof. R. C. M. Page, M. D., New York 
Polyclinic; Prof. David Webster, M. D., N. Y. Poly- 
clinic and Dartmouth College, and Prof. Eugene H. 
Porter, M. A. M., D., N. Y. Homoeopathic College. 

Says Prof. M. L. Holbrook, of N. Y. Medical 
College: "How it ever came about that anyone, 
especially a physician, who sees the evil results of un- 
chastity, should believe it necessary to health is a 
mystery to me." Henry C. Houghton, M. D., of N. 
Y. Ophthalmic Hospital, says: "Certainly; it is a sad 
comment on our American civilization that there is any 
debate on this matter.'' J. Mount Bleyer, M. D., says: 
"It is my belief that most of the suicides are due to these 
excessive practices in both sexes. It is the business of 



138 manhood's morning. 

the physician to step in as a reformer, and begin to 
educate, and to open the eyes of mothers, fathers, 
daughters and sons regarding the effects of sexual over- 
stimulation." Prof. Lyman B. Sperry, M. D., of 
Carleton College, in his admirable book, Confidential 
Talks with Young Men, says: "No condition of an un- 
married man demands, or even justifies, from a physio- 
logical, or any other standpoint, that he consort sexual- 
ly with any woman, or that he resort to any measure, 
natural or unnatural, for the gratification of his sexual 
desires. Complete abstinence from sexual indulgence 
is not only safe for an unmarried man, it is the only 
safe course for him.' * In reply to an inquiry, the eight 
Professors of a Medical University recently signed a 
declaration stating: "We know of no disease, or any 
weakness which can be said to be the result of a per- 
fectly pure, chaste life." 

The combined costs of evil habits and vice are beyond 
calculation. It has already been stated that evil habits 
are seldom practiced singly. A few young men may 
have only one bad habit — nothing more — but such 
cases are exceedingly rare. The great mass — the 
millions — of men serve pleasure for all there is in it. 
Young America seldom does things by halves. When 
young men seek after pleasure, as a rule, they taste 
every fruit, drink from every bowl and enter every door- 
way. They follow every indulgence, satiate every de- 
sire — and reap all the consequences. It is the un- 
checked and wholesale surrender to evil habits and 
wickedness that must be measured. 

Man was made to live a pure, natural life and the 
laws which govern his existence are so inexorable that 
every transgression incurs a corresponding punishment. 
44 Whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap. ' ' 
He who thinks or plans otherwise mocks God. If 



PAYING THE PIPER. 1 39 

twelve million young men sin, twelve million young 
men, or their posterity, in manifold greater number, 
must suffer in consequence. 

"Though the mills of God grind slowly, yet 
they grind exceeding small; 
Though with patience He stands waiting, 
with exactness grinds He all." 

Within the vitals of the young men of America exist 
the forces which will some day be transformed into the 
future generations of the land. Young men are al- 
ready the fatherhood of posterity. The fact that the 
embryonic, and proximate elements of a majority of 
the countless millions, yet unborn, float in the venom 
of nicotine — in the poison of alcohol — in blood made 
hot by passion — under imaginations that revel in lust 
— imprisoned in a realm where God is blasphemed — 
where love is unhallowed, where virtue is jeered and 
where fatherhood is ignored — this fact, in its moment- 
ous importance, stands paramount, unrivaled and 
first. It is within these mysterious and primitive con- 
fines that the issues of life germinate and receive their 
bent and predilections. Here it is that unnatural af- 
fections, disobedience, hatred of that which is good, 
selfishness and perverse tendencies are born. Here it 
is that the promises of God are bartered away, the 
natural birthrights blasted and life's destinies mort- 
gaged to the devil. 

Young men are infinitely more responsible, as fathers, 
before their children are born than ever afterward. 
The difference between the good and the bad, the up- 
right and the vicious, the physically sound and the dis- 
eased is largely a question of birth and ancestry. The 
only way to train up a child in the way it should go 
is to begin years before it is born, and this lesson young 
men must learn. "In the iniquities of their fathers 



140 manhood's morning. 

shall they pine away," said the great Lawgiver. 
* * Visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children/ ' 
is a Divine law. A thoughtless, perverse fatherhood 
forms the basis of untold misery and death. Whole 
families are becoming syphilitic, scrofulous and con- 
sumptive and dying out of existence, the latter disease 
carrying off over 300,000 annually. Whole families 
are becoming intemperate, profligate and morally de- 
praved. Whole families are becoming nervous, insane 
and imbecile. 

Scrofula and consumption are chiefly the offspring of 
ancestral venereal disease. While consumption in its 
fully developed stages exhibits bacteriological features 
yet the chief incipient cause is an enervated nervous 
system — a neurosis — that is becoming widespread. 
The same might be said of nasal catarrh which is well 
nigh universal in our nation. That the American 
people have grown more tense and nervous every phy- 
sician knows. Nervous prostration, nervous debility, 
neurasthenia, nervous dyspepsia and other neurosis 
have become extremely prevalent, and seriously 
threaten the vigor and strength of our national phy- 
sique. A well marked characteristic of the present 
age is that an increasing number of people live close 
to the margin of ill health. One-third of the children 
born have not vitality enough to survive adult age. 
Over one-half million persons die annually who, under 
the best possible conditions, should continue to live; 
and the large number constantly sick and invalid 
are becoming a reproach to civilization and progress. 

The reciprocal and radiating influences of these con- 
ditions are seen everywhere. As a prop for debility, 
and as a ^palliative for ultra-natural pain, the people 
flock to stimulants, narcotics and sedatives. Not only 
alcohol and tobacco, but opium, chloral and other 






PAYING THE PIPER. 1 4 1 

drugs that enslave are widely used. The consumption 
of opium has rapidly increased in our nation. At the 
present time from one-quarter to one-half million per- 
sons are habitues of the drug. It is claimed by good 
authority that opium, in all its forms, destroys more 
lives annually than liquor. Its effect upon the moral 
sense is ruinous to the extreme. Of course, no one 
thing is the sole cause of this almost universal trend 
of our national life. Climate, social customs, intense 
business activities, fashion and many other things 
play their part, but the primal and basic cause is un- 
questionably "wild oats' ' as sown by young men. 

It is a significant fact that where dissipation and vice 
prevail, healthy and robust men are not so longlived 
as the more frail and delicate. The best swimmer is 
most likely of all to be drowned, and the most power- 
ful man is most apt to outdo his strength. So it is that, 
unless restrained by moral principle, the man most 
lavishly endowed with vigor is of all most apt to fall 
into ruin, and the most brilliant and gifted are the most 
tempted to resort to artificial stimulation. Life insur- 
ance companies are rapidly finding out that it is not a 
man's physical condition and general health at any 
specified time, but his habits and morals that most 
surely decide the question of longevity. 

Bad habits and vice cause sex deterioration . Young 
men are incomparably less moral than young women. 
The disparity between the sexes morally is apparent to 
all. A chief reason for this is plain. They inherit the 
predisposition from their fathers. Vice and evil habits 
have become a matter of sex; they are largely confined 
to the male side, and heredity is disposed to keep them 
there* Consumption, rheumatism and many other 
diseases are much more apt to go, as an inheritance, 
from father to son, or from mother to daughter, than to 



142 MANHOOD S MORNING. 

wander across the lines of distinction made by sex. 
Each succeeding generation of young men that yields to 
profligacy makes this hereditary tendency more organic 
and its results more disastrous. Male children are 
more apt to die in childhood than female, due no doubt, 
to a similar cause. When the age of manhood is 
reached the death rate rapidly rises, which is much less 
marked among women. Seven times as many men as 
women die suddenly. It is within the power of young 
men — the coming fathers— and none others, to lessen 
and destroy the hereditary tendencies to vice and evil 
habits. That they do so little, or nothing at all, is an 
amazing neglect of duty. Far more attention is paid 
to the improvement of the stock among horses and 
cattle, or even among chickens and dogs, than to 
that of immortal human beings. 

Evil habits cause young men to avoid wholesome and 
elevating companionships. From the moment a boy 
takes his first lesson in any form of vice until he is lost 
in utter ruin, the whole tendency is to forsake that 
which is good and seek that which is evil. Nothing 
will cause boys and young men to quit the church and 
other religious influences, to avoid female society and 
seek questionable associations like conscious guilt. 
The vulgar and profane feel uncomfortable except 
among their own chums. Those who use tobacco or 
drink instinctively seek isolation from those w r ho are 
free from such habits. The smoking car accompany- 
ing all trains, the men's cabin on all steamers and the 
loafing facilities around all barrooms are the natural 
product of bad habits. 

By being thus divorced from elevating influences 
young men lose all interest in religion, ignore the 
Bible, desecrate the Sabbath, avoid female society and 
abandon moral restraints. They deny themselves the 



PAYING THE PIPER. 1 43 

advantages of the salt of the earth and of the light of 
the world. They rapidly become like those with whom 
they associate and they become organically wedded to 
a low standard of morals from which they have no de- 
sire to depart. 

On account of evil habits young men forfeit their 
influence for good. Their force in combating evil, on 
this account, is almost nil. A man's moral courage 
and his influence over his fellows are usually measured 
by the weakest spot in his character. As a class young 
men engage in no warfare against the great evils of the 
day. Lawlessness, dens of iniquity, speak-easies and 
deviltry of any and every sort may boldly and fearless- 
ly operate, and go on unrebuked, if none but young 
men witness the exploits. Bad habits so harden young 
men that they can stand and view, with stoic indiffer- 
ence, the most debasing episodes of shame or the most 
flagrant carnivals of sin. They become only too will- 
ing to flock around and patronize such things as do 
flies about a honey-baited trap. Satan never fears 
young men, and wastes no time defending himself 
against them. While moral heroes and women are 
waging a relentless warfare against intemperance and 
vice, young men, crippled by guilt, stand afar off, 
without the necessary armor, moral courage, or strength 
to enlist in the conflicts. 

When great revivals of religion take place, or when 
temperance workers gather in signers to the pledge, it 
is not unusual that in a short time the altars are for- 
saken and the pledges broken and the last end of the 
saved and rescued is worse than the first. It may be 
set down as an invariable rule that the chief cause of 
these lapses of will power is due to the fact that evil 
habits exist which are more powerful than the efforts 
put forth to abandon them. 



144 manhood's morning. 

Evil habits and vice prevent marriage and the per- 
petuity of the home. Says a famous writer: * 'America 
is on the verge of an age of unmarried women, because 
young men do not earn enough to support wives, and 
there is such a craze for dissipation among them that 
women had rather go in stores for almost nothing than 
risk their future in the bonds of marriage.' ' Said a 
noted lecturer recently: "The reason there are so few 
marriages is because there are so many young men in 
jails and penitentiaries; tramping the country and loaf- 
ing on street corners; spending their money in saloons 
and in questionable resorts of pleasure and wasting the 
flower of their manhood in dissipation and idleness." 
There are more males than females born, but the num- 
ber of girls who would make faithful and desirable wives 
out number the ' 'good catches' ' among young men many 
times over. The modern girl is not preparing to get 
married, as of yore, but is training herself in order that 
she may live independently by earning her own living. 
When a young man fails to marry and support a woman 
in dignity as wife and mother, as he should, he has no 
•right to find fault if she become his rival in the higher 
industries and professions and forces him into menial 
avocations or idleness. That our nation, during times 
of peace and plenty and when the home life ought to 
reach its highest development, should produce a crop of 
over 3,000,000 confirmed bachelors and a corresponding 
number of unmarried women; that the birthrate should 
decrease, which has hitherto been a pathognomonic 
forerunner of national decay; that young men and 
young women, instead of entering matrimony and 
establishing homes and rearing families, should become 
rivals and antagonists in professional life, in store and 
in workshop, furnish a condition demanding most 
serious concern. Man's first duty to woman is to see 



PAYING THE PIPER. 1 45 

that she shall not be obliged to go out into the world 
to earn her own livelihood. It is not woman's, but 
man's fault, that she does not marry. She is fore- 
going her God-intended mission, not from choice, but 
because vice, bad habits and improvidence among 
young men have made it justifiable and wise for her to 
do so. 

Evil habits pervert business and corrupt wealth. The 
liquor bill of the nation is about $1,000,000,000; the 
tobacco habit costs $750,000,000; marketable sensuality 
in an organized form, follows as third among the ex- 
pensive vices. The cost of crime is rapidly increasing 
and the constant drain upon mind and muscle and 
legitimate business has become a tax of gigantic pro- 
portions. This perversion of business, in the aggregate 
amounts to at least $3,000,000,000, annually. About 
one million young men reach their majority every year 
and if this vast sum, which is worse than squandered, 
were made to flow into their hands it would give to each 
one three thousand dollars as a start in life. This con- 
stant outlay is the source of untold misery and poverty. 
Every dollar so spent is that much out of pocket with 
absolutely no equivalent in return. 

In these days, when political and moral questions 
are so intensely discussed, the extent and sources of 
evil habits and poverty, and their relation to each other, 
are closely studied. It is claimed on the one hand 
that from fifty-five to eighty per cent, of the poverty 
in the nation is due to intemperance and vice; while 
on the other hand it is claimed that from fifty to 
seventy-five per cent, of the intemperance and vice we 
see is due to poverty. Says Josiah Strong in The New 
Era: ' 'Doubtless much poverty is due to drunkenness, 
and again much drunkenness is due to poverty.' ' Be- 
yond question bad habits and vice are the first and 



146 manhood's morning. 

deeper cause and also more blighting and destructive 
in their results. In all genuine reform the first step 
must be to change the habits and life of the individual. 
This all can do, and it is the only way to begin to 
abolish poverty. 

* 'Those who study physical sciences/ ' wrote Charles 
Dickens, "and bring them to bear upon the health of 
men, tell us that if noxious particles that rise from 
vitiated air were palpable to the sight, we should see 
them lowering in a dense black cloud above such 
haunts, and rolling slowly on to corrupt the better por- 
tion of the town. But if the moral pestilence that rises 
with them, and in the eternal laws of outraged nature, 
is inseparable from them, could be discernible too, how 
terrible the revelation! Then should we see impiety, 
depravity, drunkenness, theft, murder, and a long 
train of nameless sins against the natural affections and 
repulsions of mankind, overhanging the devoted spots, 
and creeping on to blight the innocent and spread con- 
tagion among the pure. Then should we see how the 
same poisoned fountains flow into our hospitals and 
lazar-houses, inundate the jails, and make the convict 
ships swim deep, and roll across the seas, and over run 
vast continents with crime. Then should we stand 
appalled and know that where we generate disease to 
strike our children down and entail itself upon unborn 
generations, there also we breed, by the same process, 
infancy that knows no innocence, youth without 
modesty or shame, maturity that is mature in nothing 
but suffering and guilt, blasted age that is a scandal on 
the form we bear. Unnatural humanity! When we 
shall 'gather grapes from thorns' or 'figs from thistles'; 
when fields of grain shall spring up from the offal in 
the by-ways of our wicked cities and roses bloom in 
the fat church yards that they cherish; then may we 



PAYING THE PIPER. 1 47 

look for natural humanity and find it growing from 
such seed." 

"The tissue of the life to be, 
We weave with colors all our own; 

And in the field of destiny, 
We reap as we have sown." 

Vice and evil habits assail every interest and every 
posseSvSion. Life, health, intellect and will; religion, 
society, patriotism and fraternities; wealth, success and 
prosperity, alike, go down to ruin under their destroy- 
ing power. 

But who can measure the havoc of evil habits and 
vice? Social and personal impurity has been the subtle 
and devouring octopus of human history. Through 
its power empires and kingdoms, glorying in their 
strength and magnificence and surpassing in their 
wealth and culture, have fallen to pieces and gone 
down into oblivion. It was on account of impurity and 
vice that God destroyed the human race by the flood; 
it was for the same reason that Sodom and Gomorrah 
were blotted out of existence. Impurity, especially 
among young men, caused the overthrow of magnificent 
and mighty Babylon, cultured and classic Athens and 
powerful and aggressive Rome. It has done more to de- 
throne governments and nations, obliterate happiness 
and destroy life than despotism, war and famine com- 
bined. It is God's worst enemy and Satan's best friend. 
It turns the beauty of youth into a passing delusion, 
the strength of mature manhood into a fruitless struggle 
and old age into a vain regret. It transforms health 
and vigor into de:repitude, and in place of the virgin 
bloom and innocent radiance of young manhood it gives 
the hectic blush and the pallid outlines of guilt. It 
robs the eye of its fascination and lustre and daubs its 
socket with a dull and expressionless blear. It plunders 



148 manhood's morning. < 

man of respectful gallantry and protecting chivalry and 
veneers him with sneaking effrontery and impudent 
"brass" and "cheek." 

•'I waive the quantum of the sin* 

The hazard of concealing; 
But och, it hardens all within, 

And petrifies the feeling." 

Impurity destroys the natural affections and the 
nobler aspirations and fills the soul with hatred and re- 
morse. It shuts out love and hope and heaven and 
leaves man in darkness and despair. ' 'Be not deceived; 
God is not mocked; for whatsoever a man soweth, that 
shall he also reap." "When lust hath conceived, it 
bringeth forth sin, and sin, when it is finished, bringeth 
forth death." 



Son, go work to-day. Jesus Christ. 

"The busy world shoves angrily aside 

The man who stands with arms akimbo set, 

Until occasion tell him what to go; 

And he who waits to have his task marked out, 

Shall die and leave his errand unfulfilled." 

Wisely improve the present. It is thine. Go forth to 
meet the shadowy Future without fear and with a manly 
lie art. Longfellow. 

Is there one whom difficulties dishearten, who bends to 
the storm? He will do little. Is there one who mill conquer? 
That kind of a man never fails. John Hunter, 

The safe path to excellence and success, in every callin \ 
is that of appropriate preliminary educ itien, diligent applica- 
tion to learn the art and assiduity in practicing it. 

E award Everett. 

Teach man to believe in himself; inspire him with a desire 
to be better than his father. James Piatt. 

Even young Hope sometimes half fears as it looks the 
world in the face, — and wonders how it is to push its way 
through the crowd. But, sursum corda, lift up your hearts, 
there's room for every brave and wise worker in the constant 
shif tings, openings, and changes of life. Geikie. 

f "The wisdom of the present hour 

Makes up for follies past and gone; 
To weakness strength succeeds, and power 
From frailty springs; Press on! press on! 



CHAPTKR VII. 



WHERE YOUNG MEN BELONG. 



Young men belong everywhere. Wherever a duty is 
to be performed, a principle to be championed, a battle 
to be fought, or a service either high or humble to be 
rendered, there exists a demand for young manhood. 
The sphere of young men is as broad, as high and as 
deep as the needs of earth can make it. Speculation 
has been busy in defining woman's sphere, but that of 
man has never been questioned. Wherever God has 
scattered a duty, or humanity a need or nature a fertile 
element, there man finds an opportunity to be useful. 

What is true of man in general applies with special 
directness to young men. They, to a preeminent de- 
gree, embody the elements of strength, activity and 
force. That great and boundless domain commonly 
called "The activities and duties of life' ' is the natural, 
legitimate heritage — the God-ordained sphere — of 
young men. This realm is their Canaan and it is their 
inherited privilege to go forth and possess the land. 
The young men of America will never fully honor the 
flag until they, with stout hearts and willing hands, in- 
vade every realm of activity and enterprise; and the 
flag will never fully honor them until, in its waving 
beauty, it beckons and welcomes every young man to 
all the advantages and privileges which the nation it 
represents has the power to bestow. 



152 manhood's morning. 

Nearly one million boys grow into men each year. 
Their advent brings a new force which calls for a new 
impetus and life in every department of activity. A 
constant evolution is inevitable in the normal and es- 
sential growth of the nation. When monopolizing 
fossilism holds dominion it only obstructs and embar- 
rasses progress. Unless things keep moving the fount- 
ians of manly vigor become clogged and stagnant. 
Young men have the right; more than this, it is their 
imperative duty to demand that every avenue and every 
channel leading to "life, liberty and the pursuit of 
happiness' ' be kept open and free to all new recruits. 
America has not a single position too important or too 
exalted for young men to fill. Every position, from the 
office of the President of the United States down to the 
carrying of the hod, might, in full safety, be open to 
them. Distinctions in age should never prevent any 
duty or responsibility, be it an honor or a care, from 
falling upon competent and worthy shoulders. 

While it must never be forgotten that experience has 
its advantages, it is equally important that these 
advantages be not overestimated. While experience is 
often desirable, it seldom makes a safe guide for the 
present or future. 

"The world may believe in the wisdom time teaches, 
And trust in its truth as the anchor of age, 
But many and cold is the winter that reaches, 
Not only the head, but the heart of the sage." 

What brought to pass the highest success yesterday 
may bring failure to-day. What proves a failure to- 
day may insure success to-morrow. In the evolution 
and development of a nation, as in the unfoldment of 
individual life, the energy and strength of the young, 
rather than the experience and conservative thought- 
fulness of the aged, are required to achieve success and 



WHERE YOUNG MEN BELONG. 1 53 

victory. New ideas and new duties call for new men, 
and new issues and new warfares demand the vigor and 
enthusiasm of a new generation. 

Our statute books are becoming burdened with laws 
discriminating against young men, not only in the 
matter of age, but as beginners and as new recruits 
among men. 

The law says that no man under thirty-five years of 
age can be President. A man may be three score and 
ten; he may be in his dotage; he may lack every char- 
acteristic essential to the proper execution of the duties 
of the office; he may lack patriotism, ability or even 
common sense, but if he is thirty-five he is eligible. 
He may be capable, deserving and patriotic; he may 
be, above all others, the man most suited for the high 
position and the man whose services the nation most 
needs, if thirty-five summers and winters have not 
passed over his head he cannot serve. Yet it might 
be truthfully said that there are as many men capable 
and fitted to act as President of the United States under 
thirty-five as there are over that age. The tacit effect 
of such a law, I am fully persuaded, is injurious to 
both old and young and that it is not in accord with 
the best interests of the nation. That the office needs 
to be filled by a man of mature judgment and experi- 
ence may serve as an argument. Yet young men 
possess advantages equally valuable. Indeed there are 
many valid reasons for believing that what the Ex- 
ecutive Chair most needs is a man in it full of faith, 
courage and progressive enterprise — a young man. 

The United States Senate proscribes men under 
thirty years of age. A man may be an ancient relic, 
a bloated demagogue, a boodler, a party heeler, an 
ally of the saloon and hoodlums, an ignoramus or a 
libertine, yet if he is thirty years old the doors of the 



154 MANHOOD S MORNING. 

Senate Chamber swing wide open to welcome him. 
He may be the mightiest in strength and w r isdom in all 
the land; he may represent, of all men, the vital and 
living issues of the day, yet if he is not separated from 
his birth by thirty years his services will not be toler- 
ated. There is not a single reason why age should 
prevent any competent, capable and desirable man from 
occupying any position of any kind, either private or 
public, that he may choose, or for which he may be 
chosen, and no law but a bad law and no principle but 
a wicked one will interfere. Such statutes are both 
unfair and injurious. They stigmatize and belittle 
some of the best brain and heart the nation possesses. 
The United States Senate for years has been little 
else than a farce and the House of Congress is not much 
better. The members of these two law-making bodies 
have ceased to be in sympathy with the spirit of 
progress or with the best interests of the people. That 
most reliable and conservative Philadelphia Daily, The 
Public Ledger, in a leading editorial headed ' 'Senatorial 
Decadence", in the issue of February 25th, 1896, says: 
1 'The Senate of the United States is to-day not only a 
wholly misrepresentative bod}^ but it is a sordid, un- 
dignified, unpatriotic one. It stands in the way, ob- 
structing needed legislation which it is under every 
possible moral obligation to expedite and accomplish. 
It is more a body of peddling, trafficking, political bag- 
men, trading in the silver commodity, nepotism and 
spoils of office, than statesmen seeking, in sincerity 
and integrity of purpose, to serve the people whose ser- 
vant it is, but whose master it assumes to be. ' ' There 
may be many reasons why these representatives of the 
people accomplish so little but the chief among them is 
unquestionably because they have grown old in years, 
in consequence of which they are hyper- conservative 



WHERE YOUNG MEN BELONG. 1 55 

and non-progressive. They represent the past, with its 
dead issues and buried conflicts, rather than the present 
with its vital and living questions. 

More than a century ago John Jay, at the age of 
forty -five, was appointed by Washington as Chief -jus- 
tice of the Supreme Court of the United States, and no 
President has since that time appointed so youthful a 
person to the position. The first Supreme Bench was 
filled by men scarcely forty years old, while the age of 
the present incumbents averages over sixty-four. 
Some years ago I visited the Supreme Court room, the 
occasion being the administration of the oath of office 
to an aged man, which confered upon him a Supreme 
Judgeship. The wrinkled face and decrepit form of 
the venerable man who that day assumed such a bur- 
densome task, in what proved to be the closing years of 
his life, proclaimed in eloquent terms how unkind and 
exacting the love of fame and political emulation had 
grown to be. With rare exceptions, for a half-century 
this important function of our government has been 
filled by men aged, infirm and totally unfit for the office. 
It is said that the Supreme Court is several years be- 
hind in its business. It is a gross injustice to ( the 
people and a cruel infliction upon venerated manhood 
to impose its duties upon men burdened with years. 

The members of Washington's Cabinet, and others 
in high positions at the time, consisted of men scarcely 
forty years of age, but such officials have been growing 
older and older until conservative and venerable dignity 
and stagnant fossilism dominate in our governmental 
S} r stem. 

In one of his last speeches Wendell Phillips said: 
11 The worst element in Washington in 1 861, the one 
that hated Lincoln most bitterly, and gave him the 
most trouble — the one that resisted the new order of 



I56 MANHOOD ; S MORNING. 

things the most angrily and obstinately and put the 
safety of the city into most serious peril — was the body 
of old office holders, poisoned with length of official 
life, scoffing at the people as intrusive intermeddlers; 
men in whom something like a fixed tenure of office had 
killed all sympathy with the democratic tendency of our 
system of government." 

What is favored by written laws and established cus- 
toms in the more prominent and responsible positions 
in our nation, exists in every department and channel 
of enterprise and activity. Politics, religious affairs, 
business and commerce, in fact everything tends to 
drift into the hands of old people. Men are as ambi- 
tious for power, fame and notoriety as they are for 
w r ealth, and the love for dominion and monopoly is a 
passion everywhere. 

Said that eminent Christian teacher, Bishop Simpson, 
shortly before he died: "Many churches are dying of 
official dignity and age." Everywhere, in every voca- 
tion, profession and business may be found aged men 
— veterans in life's warfare, who have borne the bur- 
den and heat of the day — vigilantly pursuing a selfish 
ambition and stoutly opposing every new rival that in- 
fringes upon their long established interests. 

While there always was, and perhaps always will be, 
a conflict of interests between the veteran and the be- 
ginner, the fact remains that the right of way — the road 
to success — life's great highway — should be kept open, 
free and untrammeled. 

Men, whose lives have been spent in following selfish 
ambition, grow more intense as time rolls by, The 
firmer their grasp becomes the tighter they squeeze, the 
more complete their monopoly the more desperately 
they crush. They tear down and build larger, they 
widen and extend their power and influence, not of 



WHERE YOUNG MEN BELONG. 1 57 

necessity nor for the love of labor but for the money, 
the honor and fame it brings. Success has set them 
wild. He who accumulates much is anxious for more, 
he who has amassed more wants a million, and the 
millioniare is hungty for more. He who gains most is 
the least contented. 

That 3'Oimg men are themselves deeply at fault for 
the unfair and unnatural conditions which exist is ap- 
parent to all. Old men continue to dominate because 
they, more than young men, possess the sterling quali- 
ties of industry, economy and pluck. It is also true 
that most young men woefully fail to prepare for the 
serious duties of life. Too many are satisfied at being 
fairly equipped; very few aim at being thorough mas- 
ters of their chosen pursuit. The world is needing only 
the best, even of men; all else is rubbish. When 
young men, with all their faculties developed and 
trained, thoroughly prepare for life's work, and, thus 
equipped, roll up their sleeves and enter the arena de- 
termined to win, the pathway to success and usefulness 
will unfold before them. 

It would be a humane and practical expedient for 
all men to retire from active business and labor at the 
age of fifty, or at the age of sixty at most. This would 
revolutionize the entire realm of business enterprise and 
industry and create a constant and enormous demand 
for new recruits. If every man in the United States 
over fifty years of age retired from active service, 
enough men would be left to transact all the business, 
fill all the places made vacant, and do all the work that 
is now being done. Those who have not accumulated 
enough to live upon, under such a system, should be 
pensioned, and those who have amassed wealth should 
be taxed. Nothing could be more fair than this 
proposition. The rich are no better than the poor. 



158 manhood's morning. 

They are no more deserving of benign and cheerful 
surroundings during their declining years than those 
who have been less fortunate in financial matters. 
The two classes — the rich and the poor — have run the 
race of life together, and each class is what it is largely 
on account of the peculiar make up of the other. The 
rich have been made so, in a large measure, through 
the self-sacrifice, credulity and improvidence of the 
poor; and the poor have been kept so through the 
shrewdness, sagacity and, too often, intense selfishness 
of the rich. They are both the result of conditions 
which strongly favor the production of financial in- 
equalities and extremes. If such a system were carried 
out poverty and neglect would cease to stare men in the 
face and the present incentives to accumulate wealth 
would not exist. 

Those under fifty years of age, if they were given 
the entire control of affairs, could well afford to support 
those beyond this age. Being responsible for the needs 
of their elders would prove an untold blessing to the 
young. This would not, in any sense be Socialism. 
It would be exactly the opposite. It would bejilialism. 
It would drive care and anxiety from the aged and give 
opportunity and duty, instead of idleness, temptation 
and confusion, to the young. The rivalry and antag- 
onisms which now exist between the established busi- 
ness man and the beginner and between the monopolist 
and his new rival with small means, would grow less or 
vanish entirely. 

Arguments against measures of this kind are never 
wanting but the fact remains that one of the greatest 
needs in our nation is a higher esteem for parenthood 
and for age. The aged men and women of our nation 
are the fathers and mothers of American manhood. 
.They have the right to lean upon the arms of their sons 



WHERE YOUNG MEN BELONG. 1 59 

and daughters in their declining years. We all know 
that old people are good, bad and indifferent. Many 
of them are not what they should be. But that is not 
our fault and perhaps it is not theirs. Many of them 
have had to battle against obstacles without either the 
strength or will-power to conquer, and it is not sur- 
prising that they have made mistakes and failures. 
They are our parenthood. God commands that we 
honor them and blesses the command with a promise. 
We know not what the sin was that banished our first 
parents from Eden, but we well know the sin that 
brought forth from our second parents the anathema: 
* 'Cursed be Canaan." It was disrespect towards 
parenthood. 

"Judge not: 
What looks to thy dim eyes a stain 
In God's pure light may only be 
A scar brought from some well-won field, 
Where thou wouldst only faint and yield." 

The fathers and mothers of America have fulfilled a 
sacred mission. They should be enshrined i^ the 
hearts and affections of their children. None of them 
should ever be allowed to feel the unkind hand of ad- 
versity nor chafe under a sense of ingratitude or neglect. 
During their declining years they should receive from 
their sons and daughters that same tender care and de- 
votion which they once so freely gave around the family 
fireside, and from the nation, if need be, the same 
loyal support which they so willingly rendered in years 
gone by. 

Young men belong in most of the positions 7iow being 
filled by women. Over four million women are earning 
a livelihood in our nation. They have outrivaled man 
in many vocations. It is the duty of young men to in- 
vade these realms and reclaim them. That women 



i6o manhood's morning. 

can do many kinds of work as well or better than men 
can does not prove that they should do it. 

Dismissing all cant and fanaticism, the fact remains 
that a wide difference exists between the mission of 
man and that of woman. While 

"The woman's cause is man's, they rise or sink 
Together, dwarfed or Godlike, bond or free," 

each have their definite sphere. The more closely each 
adhere to their intended sphere the more useful, con- 
tented and forceful will they become. By doing man's 
work, woman, in a measure, forfeits the more delicate 
fibre of her nature, and by not doing this work man 
fails to reach his fullest strength. The highest glory 
of man and the highest glory of woman are entirely 
distinct and they can never be reached through the 
rivalry and routine of store, shop and factory. Yet no 
two things are more intimately related and dependent 
upon each other. 

"O woman! Lovely woman! Nature made thee 
To temper man; we had been brutes without thee 
Angels are painted fair to look like you." 

It is far from being true that women are better 
adapted to certain kinds of labor than men. Man, 
when at his best, is par excellence in all kinds of labor 
and has no peer. 

Under the impression that women make better 
teachers than men do, teaching has drifted almost en- 
tirely into the hands of women. The impression is, 
however, very erroneous. Many of the best educators 
declare that men make better teachers than women. 
When boys arrive at a certain age they should unques- 
tionably be under the instruction of men. Says the 
Superintendent of the Public Schools of Philadelphia, 
in a recent Annual Report; "The great need of to-day 
is the education of our boys into a strong, well-rounded. 



WHERE YOUNG MEN BELONG. l6l 

fearless manhood; and to accomplish this the influence 
of men as teachers is needed in the schools. If we fail to 
secure this the community will be greatly the loser by 
our failure. The young manhood of to-day is exposed 
to peculiar dangers. In the growth and development 
of modern society, influences have arisen which tend 
to dwarf manhood and weaken personal energy and 
force. Never before have stability of character, 
thoroughness of attainment and persistence of effort 
been so imperatively demanded as from the youth of 
to-day. The youth of to-day are to be the young men 
of to-morrow, and to become the strong men of a few 
years hence. The future of our country is with them. 
Men must no longer be excluded from the teaching 
force. The fact is that a woman teacher cannot, in the 
nature of things, gain the confidence of a class of large 
boys to the same extent that a man can, and the pre- 
ceptor who establishes a feeling of confidence between 
himself and his pupils gains an influence of immeasur- 
able value to the pupils' advancement. " During the 
recent past a widespread sentiment has grown in favor 
of male educators. The educational field is susceptible 
of an unlimited growth and extension and of all avoca- 
tions to which a young man can dedicate his talents 
and life, perhaps that of teaching offers the most 
promising outlook. 

As far as factory life, and the coarse menial avoca- 
tions are concerned, when women are found doing 
these things it always suggests that somewhere, in 
some way, young men are failing to do their duty. It 
shows that either an imperfect industrial system exists 
or that young manhood has become derelict or prodi- 
gal. The same applies, to a less degree, to clerks in 
stores, book-keepers, stenographers and type- writers. 
These things are preeminently man's work. People as 



162 manhood's morning. 

a rule would rather do business with men than with 
women. Were money considerations equal, and man 
as circumspect and faithful as woman, his services 
would be almost universally sought in preference. 

It is not necessary for women to work as they do : 
and it does them, in the long run, physical injury. 
Says Dr. H. S. Pomeroy, in Ethics of Marriage-. "All 
the female wage-earners in the world will not earn 
enough to pay the bill for extravagance and vice. ' ' Of 
the female children of working women, as compared to 
those not so engaged, he says: "The greater per cent, 
will be found alive and in health at eighteen years among 
the well-to-do class," and * 'at fifty years of age the ad- 
vantage is vastly against the laboring woman." 

The question might be urged: "If women were de- 
barred from earning a living, what would become of 
them?" The answer is plain. Let the young men 
marry and support them. This would elevate woman 
to her normal sphere — and man also. 

"A perfect woman nobly planned 
To warn, to comfort and command. 
A creature not too bright or good, 
Tor human natures daily food, 
And yet a spirit pure and bright, 
With something of an angel's light." 

Should woman retire from factory, store and shop 
she will not cease to be handsome, useful and noble 
hearted. Should the young manhood of the nation, 
with clean hearts and willing hands, strive to reclaim 
these vast realms of industry, not one among all the 
millions of girls w r ould refuse to resign her position and 
become a faithful and devoted wife. When their con- 
fidence and love are honestly earned and the question 
manfully put, then, and then only, can multiplying 
bachelorhood be charged to the faults of woman. Says 
Frances Willard, who, it must be remembered, is herself 



WHKRK YOUNG MEN BELONG. 1 63 

a bachelor: "In an age of force woman's greatest grace 
was td cling; in this age of peace she doesn't cHng 
much, but is every bit as tender and as sweet as if she 
did." It might be said, with every whit as much 
truth, that should the good old "clinging" days re- 
turn again 

"Not then will woman idly rest 
A pretty household dove. 
* * * * * 

But strive with him in noblest work 
and with him win at last." 

A woman may make a good teacher of the children 
of others, but she makes a better trainer of her own; 
she may be a faithful machine in the realm of labor, 
but she makes a better mother in the realm of love; she 
may be a skillful worker, a mute and consistent hire- 
ling, in serving the exacting demands of modern in- 
dustry, but she would be happier as wife and mother 
in the home, and in these positions her life would be 
more in harmony with her higher nature. 

Woman's highest achievements will ever cling to 
motherhood and her greatest powers remain behind the 
throne. The world's greatest and truest women have 
been the mothers of its noblest and best men. To be- 
come the mother of a Wesley or Wilberforce, a Webster 
or Washington, is greater than to be a Joan of Arc, a 
Madame Recamier, or the Queen of Sheba. To rock 
the cradle and shape the destiny of Shakespeare, Milton, 
Bunyan, Luther, Pestalozzi, Livingstone, Columbus, 
Lincoln, Whitney, Fulton, Morton, Howe, Morse or 
Edison is a greater work than to wield the sceptre of 
the world's fashion or wear a royal crown. 

It is unfortunate that so many men lose their in- 
herited love for homelife; that so many learn nothing 
of love, of marriage and of domestic affection except 
what they learn through observation and sentimen'ai 



164 manhood's morning. 

fiction. Every young man should be his own hero ; 
and every girl her own heroine, and the story of their 
lives should spring forth, not from the imagination of 
some professional novelist, but from Heaven, and their 
career should not be pictured by the pen of alluring 
fancy, but unraveled in the munificent plans of God. 
"Love in a Cottage" can never be sold in book form. 
Man's highest possibilities and pleasures, as well as 
those of woman, emanate from a common centre and 
that centre is the home. Indeed, at home, his own 
home, around his own fireside, at his own table, 
under his own roof — in love with and beloved by his 
own — the king of his own realm — the dispenser and 
harvester of his own affections — is where the young 
men of America, more than any place else, belong. 

To an audience of young men, shortly before he died, 
the lamented Henry W. Grady, said: "The man who 
kindles the fire on the hearthstone of an honest and 
righteous home, burns the best incense to liberty Let 
him stand upright and fearless — a freeman born of 
freemen — sturdy in his own strength — dowering his 
family in the sweat of his brow — loving to his State — 
loyal to the Republic — earnest in his allegiance wherever 
it rests, but building his altar in the midst of his house- 
hold gods and shrining in his heart the uttermost 
temple of its liberty.' ' 

Young men belong in politics. Young men, more 
than any other class, can purify and reform political 
action. As men grow old they usually become hide- 
bound politically and refuse to be influenced by new 
questions or new conditions. Under an ideal republi- 
canism political action should bring to pass the sur- 
vival and promotion of the fittest. But the opposite 
prevails most of the time. 

Corruption in politics has always existed about the 



WHERE YOUNG MEN BELONG. 1 65 

same as it prevails to-day. In 1842 the eminent 
Samuel G. Goodrich, wrote: "The conviction is very- 
general that morality and politics are in a state of di- 
vorce. The monstrous doctrine that 'all is fair in 
politics' extensively prevails; and most of the profligacy 
we observe, most of the corruption, intrigue, selfishness 
destitution of patriotism, so notorious in high places, 
are imputed to the currency of this false and wicked 
philosophy/ ' During the intervening half century 
many reforms have taken place but politics is as corrupt 
as ever. The improvements and reforms that have 
taken place have been brought about largely through 
the aid of young men. More than half the blood shed 
in the great civil war was sacrificed by young men 
under twenty-three. 

Nothing grows corrupt and fossilized more quickly 
than a political party. None can overcome and destroy 
these evils like new blood and young brains. The 
political arena — corrupt as it is — crowded with the de- 
bauched devotees of the saloons — its conquerers glory- 
ing in shame — its victims dying in dishonor — is never- 
theless the place for young men. No new party can 
ever hope to gain success unless it secures the support 
and influence of new voters. They are not the 
"balance of power " but the power itself. 

It is the duty of young men to assert and maintain 
their independence in politics, and think, act and vote 
their own individual convictions. The fact that my 
father was a Democrat is no reason for my being one. 
My membership in a certain political party is no reason 
why my son should vote its ticket. New voters should 
follow no antiquated shibboleth. It is usually a mark 
of political cowardice and a decay of patriotism when 
party affiliations become an inheritance or family heir- 
loom. 



i66 manhood's morning. 

New questions and new issues are constantly arising 
requiring new platforms and new political parties to 
embody their principles into organic law. Into these 
new fields it is the imperative duty of young men to 
enlist. 

Professional politicians have, for a full generation, 
been fighting over the bones of dead issues. We need 
nothing more surely than a revolution in politics. 
Most men are disgusted and many are exasperated. 
Women have become justly impatient and are boldly 
demanding the ballot. "Woman's vote" says Joseph 
Cook: "would be to the vices in our great cities what 
lightning is to the oak. M If this be true the sooner it 
strikes the better. 

In no civilized nation on the earth can young men 
wield so great an influence in governmental affairs as 
in America, and perhaps in none is less sacrifice made. 
It is the duty of every new generation of young men to 
carry the American flag to a higher, safer and more ad- 
vanced ground and plant its support upon a more im- 
pregnable rock. Nothing develops the patriotism or 
tempers the mettle of young manhood like joining some 
unpopular but worthy cause and forcing and fighting it 
into victory. 

" We're t eaten back in many a fray, 

Yet n ^wer strength we borrow, 
And where our vanguard camps to-day 

Our rear shall rest to-morrow." 

Young men belong in the church, God loves a young 
man. Christ died to save sinners and the chiefs among 
these are young men. The mission of the church is to 
reach and save the lost, and from among young men 
must its greatest conquests be realized. Old sinners, 
as a rule, do not repent — simply one now r and then 
proving such a thing possible. 



where: young men belong. 167 

That "young men only can reach young men" was 
never more true than now. Young men are more 
thoroughly divorced from the church perhaps than 
they ever were and consequently are more difficult 
to reach. The church, therefore, must depend upon 
young men for its chief workers u ithin and from their 
ranks from without must come its chief recruits. 

When a church is filled with its complement of 
young men, awake and active, it becomes at once a 
moral and spiritual power. When it has no active 
young men, and has lost interest in them, it is practical- 
ly dead. 

The fact that three-fourths of the young men of our 
nation never go to church is often quoted as showing a 
serious condition of spirituality. But there is a fact 
still more lamentable; three-fourths of those who do 
attend sit within seven pews of the door,' indolent, 
silent and still. Their light is under a bushel, their 
oil is in the cruse and their talents are hid in a napkin. 

Sometime since I attended a prayer meeting consist- 
ing of about one hundred persons. There were about 
twenty young ladies present, but only one young man 
and he occupied the rear pew. At another religious 
meeting about three hundred were present; fifty or 
more young ladies were scattered through the audi- 
ence, while crowded together on the back seat were 
eight young men. The above may be exceptional 
cases but the fact remains that the church is forsaken 
to a deplorable degree by young men, and most of 
those who do attend are like ciphers when within its 
walls. 

Just here exists a vital problem, and one w 7 hich the 
church of the future must solve. The work of the 
church is a constant and aggressive warfare, requiring 
the strongest and most valiant of men — a strength and 



l68 MANHOODS MORNING. 

valor which young men, and they only, possess. It is 
not generally recognized that young men surpass their 
seniors in moral and spiritual strength. But they do. 
* 'Unto you, young men, because ye are strong' ' does not 
refer to physical strength. It means exactly that kind 
of strength which the church must secure or fail in its 
mission. Nothing is more remarkable than the 
strength, force and power of a thoroughly converted 
young man. Especially is this true during his early 
Christian career. On the other hand it is often amaz- 
ing how little direct spiritual force a man possesses who 
has been a consistent and active Christian for forty or 
fifty years. Under the leadership of the old a church 
is apt to become an immovable body, while under the 
influence of the young it becomes an irresistible force. 

These facts if recognized change the commonly ac- 
cepted relation between the church and young men. 
It makes of them not simply an indefinite, but a 
specific part of the church, and gives to them specific 
duties which they alone can perform. 

The regular church services of at least one Sabbath 
evening each month should be devoted exclusively to 
young men. Not an hour, Sunday afternoon, when 
many are asleep; not during the time devoted to the 
Young People's Society; not in some hall, lecture room 
or basement, but during the best hour, in the best 
audience room and surrounded by the best and most 
attractive conditions. No women, children, and es- 
pecially no old men should be allowed to be present. 
All these features are imperative. The Y. M. C. A., 
or any other organization cannot meet the requirements. 
Theage should be limited to thirty years, or less, and an 
occasional Sunday morning might be included advan- 
tageously. 

No minister can appropriately and effectually preach 



WHERE YOUNG MEN BELONG. 1 69 

to young men nor can any one deliver an address to them, 
with its force unimpaired, unless they alone compose the 
audience. The young men of America are suffering an 
irreparable loss physically, morally and spiritually for 
the want of such sermons and addresses as these new 
opportunities and environments would inspire. Were 
such a system inaugurated and faithfully and wisely 
carried out, it would prove an incalculable boon to the 
cause of Christianity. 

That difficulties surround any advance measures in 
church work cannot be denied. Ministers, as a rule, 
are far more progressive than those who hold the reins 
of church government. Thousands of them are handi- 
capped and held in check and the work of the church 
is kept at a stand-still by conservative, non-progressive 
officials. Said an earnest pastor: "About eight men 
run my church. They are active and earnest but old 
and very conservative. Everything I receive comes 
through their rigid fingers. Everything I say must be 
fired out over their venerable heads. They are always 
present and intensely loyal but they are stationary and 
the church is at a standstill." Thousands of pastors 
lament the same conditions. It would seem that to 
many of the best of men, as they grow old, the church 
becomes as Abraham's bosom, and between them and 
the world, with its sins and sinners, there is a great 
gulf fixed across which but little influence is apt to 
pass. 

Some years ago a zealous, courageous minister was 
called to a church of this kind. Six old men — earnest 
active and consistent — were running the church. They 
managed its finances, and at prayer meetings and on 
other occasions they monopolized the time which be- 
longed to all. At the end of a few weeks the pastor, 
in language all could understand, declared that a radi- 



170 manhood's morning. 

cal change must be made at once. These six men, 
good as they were, left the church. In a short time 
over two hundred young people were added to the 
membership. 

New methods in work are imperative. The church 
is failing to progress in keeping with the times, failing 
to enthuse her own membership and failing to reach 
the masses. No one dare assert that the church can- 
not make rapid advancement if she go to work in the 
right way. Regarding the methods to be adopted, 
however, there is great confusion. 

Not much will be accomplished until the importance 
of the church is better appreciated. Its work is the 
highest mission under the stars. Jesus taught this 
lesson at the very beginning of his ministry. When he 
entered the temple the first thing he did was to make 
a scourge of small cords — a cat-o' -nine- tails— and drive 
men out therefrom. To him the temple had become a 
den and its worshippers thieves. Yet he, with scourge 
in hand and indignation upon his lips, was the Prince 
of Peace. He whipped the men out because it was 
necessary, because the house represented a high mis- 
sion and they had prostituted that mission to an un- 
holy cause. 

When Jesus had established his divine nature and his 
fame had spread throughout the land, the people flocked 
to him to be healed and to hear him preach. Here too 
he teaches a forceful lesson. Great multitudes came 
from Galilee and from Decapolis, and from Jerusalem, 
and from Judea and from beyond Jordan to see and 
hear him. No doubt there were many thousands; all 
anxious and eager to listen to his words. To-morrow 
he was to preach. It was to be the greatest sermon 
the world would ever hear. He had been four 
thousand years preparing it. It embraced the prin- 



WHERE YOUNG MEN BELONG. 171 

ciples of all moral law and all religious duty. When 
multitudes sought shelter and repose for the night, 
Jesus went into seclusion to pray. There, kneeling 
upon the dewy grass, in communion with his Father 
and his God, he spent the hours of the night. When 
the morning came, "seeing the multitudes, " he went 
up into a mountain, and there preached the world's 
greatest sermon, not to the thousands who had come to 
hear him, but to twelve obscure men, most of them, 
perhaps all of them, young in years and in experience. 

Jesus may have been planning this matter for a 
thousand years. He did not avoid the multitude and 
preach to twelve men without a good cause. He did 
it on account of its surpassing importance. The ser- 
mon would have lost its force in the multitudes. This 
is the fate of most modern sermons . Suppose a preacher 
were to spend a lifetime on one sermon, the only one he 
expected to be remembered, the one containing his best 
thoughts and noblest expressions, and thousands of 
people flocked to hear him; how many, "seeing the 
multitudes' ' would seek seclusion and preach it to 
twelve young men? 

The work of the church requires as much courage, 
zeal and wisdom as it ever did . That it exert a deeper 
and quickened influence is imperative. It must be 
more direct and specific. Modern inventions and 
enterprise have specialized everything. Promiscuous 
effort no longer succeeds. The church also must con- 
centrate its energies and renew its warfare. Young 
men must enlist. They must help fight its battles, 
they must take the lead, they must make up the twelve. 

Young men belong in society. The millennium, when 
it visits the earth, will come through social channels. 
Those gifted with social faculties are more needed in 
the world to-day than those with wealth, executive 



172 MANHOOD S MORNING. 

force or genius. 

None are so richly endowed with social power as 
young men. It is not the select ' 'Four Hundred' ' who 
reign in the social realm but the young men of the 
nation. It is they, and none other, who can take the 
lead in the new social order. The field is open not 
only to wealth, station and influence, but to intelli- 
gence, talent, wisdom, foresight, tact and sympathy, 
whenever and to whatever extent they may exist. 

4 'The coming society/ ' Sociologists tell us, 4< will be 
Scientific, Educational, Democratic, Co-operative, 
Fraternal and Religious." It will recognize the fact 
that all mankind belong to one common brotherhood. 
Its influence will tend to a leveling up of extremes. 
It will teach the educated the necessity of enlightening 
the ignorant; it will demand that the rich live for the 
poor and it will enlist the good in a united and loyal 
effort to reform and uplift the wayward and bad. 

Young men must enter society because society can- 
not get along without them, and, also, because they 
need the gallant chivalry and polish which it gives to 
its worthy patrons, and which can be secured nowhere 
else. Society occupies a middle ground between our 
educational system and the church. Its importance is 
incalculable. Perhaps no realm has been more sadly 
neglected. It needs to undergo an entire reorganiza- 
tion. It touches the most impressionable side of man's 
nature and is the chief factor in both uplifting and in 
degrading mankind. The rare few to be found in every 
community who wield a wholesome social influence are 
the kings and queens of the earth. 

Young men seem to be afraid of social gatherings. 
They are naturally bashful, backward and even balky. 
"There are many social circles, ,, says a noted writer: 
"in every Eastern city and town, embracing great 



WHERE YOUNG MEN BELONG. 1 73 

numbers of beautiful and well educated young women, | 
in which there cannot be found a particularly desirable 
match among the men. Two or three hackneyed 
beaux do the polite for two or three generations of 
ladies, and are so busy in the service that they forget 
to marry.' ' The vast majority of young men avoid the 
social arena. Yet there is no place where they can be 
more useful and from nothing can they gain more 
pleasure and profit. There is nothing this side of 
Heaven so innocent, so elevating and so profitable as 
the mingling together of sensible, pure-minded young 
people of both sexes. 

Young men belong among their seniors a?id superiors. 
It is the duty of young men to put away childish things 
and be men among men. They should become in- 
terested and active partners in every good thing and 
become intelligently informed regarding every ques- 
tion. They should aim high and push to the front. 

No young man should fail to give to the world the 
full measure of his worth and demand, in return, that 
the world properly respect and appreciate him. It is 
an accepted maxim that ' 'The world owes every man a 
living/ ' but it owes him more than this. It owes him 
opportunity, respect, success, citizenship, honor and 
room to grow, and it is the duty of every young man 
to secure these things by loyal, persistent service. 

The sooner a young man demonstrates his real 
worth the better it is for his own success and peace of 
mind, and for the world at large. He owes it to him- 
self that he enlist, with all his might, in the world's 
activities; the world in return owes him room, oppor- 
tunity and deserved success. No matter whether a 
I young man is a genius or a laggard, a hero or a knave, 
! a patriot or a traitor, a paragon or a fool, the sooner it is 
i found out the better for all concerned. When a young 



174 MANHOOD'S MORNING. 

man is composed of valuable parts and potent powers 
for good, if the world fails to get the benefit of the 
strength and force of his early manhood, it is a great 
loser. If a young man lacks honor or worth or virtue 
the sooner the world finds it out the less injury will it 
-suffer from his hands. 

The young men of America have an inherited right 
■to all that has made the nation great, happy and pros- 
perous. They are the begotten sons of the national 
parenthood. As in the Kingdom of Grace, so it is in 
the Kingdom of Citizenship — they are sons — if sons, 
then heirs, and joints heirs with each other to a place 
in which to be useful and to an opportunity by which 
to secure and enjoy the confidence and respect of men 
and the comforts and blessings of a comfortable and 
happy home. 

I began this chapter by saying that "Young men 
belong everywhere'' And so they do. But this does 
not tell all the truth. Justice goes a step farther. 
Everywhere belongs to young men. 



Show thyself a man. — David, 

"Call up thy noble spirit, 
Rouse all the generous energies of virtue, 
And with the strength of Heaven-endued man 
Repel the hideous foe! Be great, be valiant! 
O, if thou couldst, e'en shrouded as thou art 
In all the sad infirmities of nature, 
What a most noble creature wouldst thou be!" 
"First be a man." — Rousseau. 

"Manhood is above all riches, overtops all titles and char- 
acter is greater than any career," 

Orison Swett Marden. 

Be sure, my son, remember that the best men always 
•make themselves. — Patrick Henry. 

Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising 
every time we fall. — Confucius. 

The truest test of civilization is not the census, nor the 
size of cities, nor the crops; no, but the kind of man the 
•country turns out. — Emerson. 

The secret of success in life is for a man to be ready for his 
opportunity when it comes. — Disraeli. 

The truest wisdom is a resolute determination * * *. 
I have only one counsel for you — Be master. 

Napoleon. 

As there is nothing in the world great but man, there is 
nothing truly great in man but character. 

William M. Everts. 

The reverence of man's self is, next to religion, the chiefest 

bridle of all vices. — Bason. 



CHAPTER VIII. 



WHAT YOUNG MEN MUST BE. 



Modern progress and civilization have, to a remark- 
able degree, emphasized and augmented the individual- 
ity of men. Man's duties, as well as his relation to his 
surroundings, are constantly changing. History has 
been marked by epochs. Men have been called upon 
to meet one crisis and then another, and new and 
special duties grow up with each generation. Ignor- 
ance, superstition, despotism and war have all, in turn, 
had their struggles and conquests and the world sur- 
vives them all. 

America has a noble history. Our forefathers have 
left a record, eventful and glorious, for which every 
patriotic citizen is grateful and proud. Virtue, indus- 
try, education, talent, inventive genius and indomitable 
push and enterprise have found a rich soil within our 
borders. Bountiful harvests, wealth producing enter- 
prises and cumulative power have placed America at 
the very front among the nations of the earth. 

The central characteristic of our nation has, from 
the beginning, been to promote the virtue, liberty and 
happiness of its people. Its founders had an unswerv- 
ing faith in their children and children's children. 
They so shaped and settled the nation's destinies that 
inasmuch as they were faithful over a few things their 
posterity should be rulers over many things. They 



178 MANHOOD'S MORNING. 

staked the future of the republic upon manhood and 
not upon wealth and commerce. Little did they know 
of the extent of field and forest and less of the wealth 
of mine and mountain. Virtue, intelligence, industry 
and independence were the pillars upon which the 
nation was founded and upon these must it rest for- 
ever. 

Thus have mankind, in the natural unfoldment of 
the original intent, been promoted from one degree of 
eminence to another until to be an American demands 
a manhood portraying the highest expression. 

The principle "Quality rather than Quantity" is being 
applied to men. The time has come when being some- 
thing is an essential preliminary to doing something. 
The duties and successes of life have called men to a 
higher plane of activity. That so many refuse to be 
led is the cause of the discord, unhappiness and failure 
so common. 

A new and more perfect type of manhood — a new 
personnel — is called for. The real worth and intrinsic 
value of a man does not consist of the abundance of his 
wealth but of a richly endowed and well poised person- 
ality. The most useful citizen is he who rises highest 
as an individual. He is most loyal to his country who 
is truest to his own integrity. The greatest friend to 
liberty is he who governs himself. The noblest patriot 
is not the mightiest, but the purest man. 

The battles of the future will be unlike those of the 
past. The enemies of our nation to-day are not 
I skirmishing in the distance with musket and cannon, 
but they are in our midst. They are * 'bone of our 
bone and flesh of our flesh"; they have been born up- 
on our soil and have grown up with us and form an 
organic part of our national life. The tactics of future 
warfare will not consist in trying to get within shooting 



WHAT YOUNG MEN MUST BE,. 1 79 

distance of some foreign or alien enemy but in getting 
the enemy far enough separated from our own bosoms 
to give it a telling blow. Our foes are no longer tele- 
scopic but microscopic, not hideous and repulsive but 
subtle and winning. Right and wrong are no longer 
national differences, with oceans and well defined border 
lines between. Men do not go out to meet treason, 
oppression and wickedness in open conflict, upon the 
field of battle, and conquer with sword, rifle and can- 
non. Good and evil commingle, and live and work and 
play together. They sit in the same pew and are 
schooled under the same curriculum. Indeed, the good 
and evil of modern times wrestle in the same breast 
and wage a relentless warfare within the same vitals, 
mind and heart. 

To simply multiply in numbers will never make 
America great as a nation. Wealth that is concentrated, 
power that is selfish and dogmatic will never insure our 
safety. America's security must ever depend upon the 
character of its citizens. 

Our ability to successfully and profitably enjoy 
liberty, peace and prosperity is being put to a crucial 
test, Mankind is called upon to govern itself. "We 
live in an age," said Edward Everett: "and in a coun- 
try where positive laws and institutions have, compara- 
tively, but little direct force. But human nature re- 
mains the same. The passions are as wild, as ardent 
and as ungovernable in a republic as in a despotism." 
Herein lies our danger. Men are called upon not to 
be slaves but to be freemen, not to serve but to govern, 
not to bow to oppression but to stand erect in the clear 
sunlight of liberty. 

This is man's normal sphere but it is the most diffi- 
cult to fill. His highest and ultimate sphere is not to 
toil and drudge but to subdue and to exercise dominion. 



180 manhood's morning. 

The present is a new era in the world's history; it rep- 
resents a triumph of liberty; it is a crisis in the history 
of manhood. The new epoch is one of peace and 

"Peace hath higher tests of manhood 
Than battle ever knew. 

There is a growing desire among all classes of people 
for a more contented and prosperous age. The past 
with its records of war, oppression and suffering is 
rapidly losing its prestige. Human experiences have, 
so far, been little else than wandering in a wilderness 
and there is a widespread and honest search for a grand 
highway which shall lead to a more prosperous and 
equitable era. The popular mind and heart are dissat- 
isfied. Out of conflicting thoughts and energies is ex- 
pected to come forth an ideal condition. 

No matter how much froth and sentimentalism there 
may be upon the surface, man remains thoughtful, 
practical and serious. The noise and apparent friction, 
occasioned by the rapidity with which we move, may 
make a few skeptical and pessimistic, yet there 
continues an unswerving faith in the future. Hope 
was never so firm and anticipation never so confiding 
as they are to-day. 

"Forwakd! ye deluded nations. 

Progress is the rule of all: 
Man was made for healthful effort; 

Tyranny has crushed him long; 
He shall march from good to better, 

And do battle with the wrong." 

Young men must make the most and best of themselves. 
Nobility of character has ever been the bulwark of 
nations. History teaches nothing more plainly than 
that progress and prosperity, require a corresponding 
improvement in the type of manhood. The grave- 
stones of almost every former republic warn us that a 



WHAT YOUNG MEN MUST BE. l8l 

high standard of moral rectitude as well as of intelli- 
gence is indispensable. 

While human history runs back nearly six thousand 
j'ears, men are alive to-day who have witnessed one- 
half of the world's progress. As the world moves for- 
ward men are required to move upward and develop 
superior qualities of mind and character. America is 
demanding the energy, force and strength of the 
strongest of men; an energy, force and strength which 
only the young possess, and which the young attain 
only through self sacrifice and determined effort. 

When the world was young it judged men by what 
they said; as it grows older it estimates them according 
to what they do. "What a man does is the real test 
of what a man is; and to talk of what great things one 
would accomplish if he had more talent, is to say how 
strong a man would be if he had more strength. ' ' The 
world is seeking for men with the strength and force of 
quality. It is demanding a manhood that believes 
what it now doubts, that constructs what it now 
neglects; that cultivates and saves what it now wastes, 
that lays upon the altars of duty and loyalty what it 
now sacrifices at the shrine of base indulgences and 
selfish greed. 

There is at the present time an overwhelming glut 
of incompetency &ad a famine of available, desirable 
men. Young men are begging no harder for work 
than high grade positions are begging for competent 
men to fill them. The entire realm of supply and de- 
mand is so exact and rigid that only goods of standard 
merit are sure of finding buyers in the markets of the 
world, and when men are wanted only those who meet 
a certain standard of excellence find desirable positions. 
Goods in the stores of merchants are literally plastered 
over with quality marks. Those labeled "XXX," 



182 manhood's morning. 

"A, No. I," "Extra-superfine," "Unadulterated, 11 
"Genuine," "I X L," "Guaranteed," "All Wool and 
Full Width," or "Fast Colors," find appreciative 
buyers, while those without anything to recommend 
them become shop worn and must be sold at the bar- 
gain counter or at auction to the highest bidder. So 
it is with hundreds of thousands of young men. 
They swarm into the great centres of manufacture and 
commerce, representing an indefinite capacity and 
many of them a questionable quality, and while those 
who possess a special degree of grit and ability gain 
positions and success, the majority become a drug in 
the world's busy marts only to be shoved aside and 
doomed to idleness, servitude and poverty. 

A mistake made by too many young men is to 
imagine that they can act out in their lives the part of 
useful and exemplary citizens without embodying cor- 
responding traits of character within their own natures. 
As none but a strong arm can strike a powerful blow 
and only a keen, analytical mind can solve abstruse 
mental problems, so it is equally true that it requires 
the presence of a well trained moral character to exert 
a strong moral force. "The fountain cannot rise 
higher than its source," and the deeds of man, his 
real success and his deserved fame and honor can never 
be higher or greater than is the source of all these — 
the character of the man himself. 

The hearts of men, more than their heads or hands, 
shape history. "Out of the fullness of the heart the 
mouth speaketh," and the mind and energies work out 
the achievements of life. 

Multitudes of young men make a failure of life, not 
because the chances of success do not exist, but because 
the elements of success are not within them. If there 
is nothing in a young man he may live under the most 



WHAT YOUNG MEN MUST BE. 1 83 

promising conditions of health, wealth and opportuni- 
ties; he may have greatness thrust upon him, yet his 
life will prove a failure. Such a person will never at- 
tain success. But if the elements of success arc in a 
young man he may be born in poverty and obscurity, 
so much the better; he may be haunted by infirmity 
and disappointment, but these will not dishearten; 
friends may forsake him and foes embitter his life, but 
he braves the storm; he may meet difficulties and em- 
barrassments, but he is bound to succeed in spite of 
these things. Indeed, in the face of a capable, de- 
termined and courageous man obstacles and disappoint- 
ments are only boulders upon which to climb, and the 
bitter experiences of adversity and opposition are 
simply incentives to greater diligence and nobler efforts. 

Young men must be diligent and progressive in busi- 
ness. Diligence is more than industry simply. It 
means working with the might; throwing energy, heart 
and life into what we do, An ox or a mule may be 
industrious but they are never diligent. ' 'Diligence 
is the mother of luck," and is always the price of 
genuine success. 

Nothing so recommends a young man to the experi- 
enced business man like honest diligence. Nothing so 
quickly severs confidence as a slovenly lack of interest. 

There is need of a revolution in the prevailing per- 
sonal business methods of young men. With a few 
rare exceptions they use no system whatever in the 
management of their individual finances. The loose 
and careless manner in which they fritter away their 
small early earnings is simply ruinous. The founda- 
tions of almost every really successful career has been 
humbly laid by saving small fragments secured through 
industry, patience and self-denial. 

When young men squander their first earnings, be 



184 manhood's morning. 

they ever so small, as a rule, it becomes a fixed habit 
and they live and die poar. If the first chances to 
save are wasted future opportunities are apt to pass un- 
noticed. When a young man is working for his board 
and two dollars per week he is just as surely a business 
man as the bank president or the merchant prince. It 
is his duty, at the end of each week, to be able to make 
out a trial balance sheet, and, if possible, declare a 
dividend and increase his bank account as a capitalist. 

By early adopting systematic habits of business 
young men receive the advantages of a most wholesome 
discipline. Earning money by honest work not only 
develops the muscle, but practicing economy and lay- 
ing by a portion tor the future is an intellectual exer- 
cise eminently elevating to the moral nature. 

Young men must be vigilant for the right. What 
young men need most is to become enamored of hu- 
manity. What the world needs most is the love and 
sympathy of strong and brave men. The world has 
many reforms to be wrought, many crusades to be 
manned and many conquests in behalf of truth and jus- 
tice to be achieved, and young men alone possess the 
power and endurance to conquer. 

Young men, more than any other class, should be 
interested in the evils of intemperance, crime and law- 
lessness. Tens of thousands, many of them the very 
choicest of their number, go down to drunkards' graves 
every year. An appalling multitude waste their health 
and earnings in supporting the dram shops dl the nation 
and millions of them pale their cheeks, dwarf their 
bodies and sap their intellects through the use of to- 
bacco. These millions of young men are the trusted 
friends and bosom companions of millions of other 
young men. They are held together by all the affini- 
ties of brotherly good- will J luxurious spirits and per- 



WHAT YOUNG MEN MUST BE. 1 85 

sonal magnetism. They are at each others' elbows, 
they grasp each others' hands and cheer each others' 
hearts. 

Old men and women, philanthropists and benefactors 
may preach and sing and plead and sympathize to rid 
the world of evils but they will not prevail. These war- 
fares belong to young men. They must not simply 
help but they must do the world's reforms. 

When Lincoln, in 1861, called for volunteers, the 
men of the North, almost in a body, enlisted within 
forty-eight hours. These men represented the strength, 
bravery and patriotism of the nation and more than 
one-half of them were under twenty-three years of age. 
Men are called for to-day, not in one conflict simply, 
but in many. The nation is being robbed of its possi- 
bilities by evils and selfish ambitions upon every side. 
Never was there a more positive demand for strong, 
brave, patriotic young men. 

"God give us men, a time like this demands 
Great hearts, strong minds, true faith and ready hands. 
* * * * * * 

For while the rabble with its thumb-worn creeds, 
Its largest professions, and its little deeds 
Mingle in selfish strife, lo! freedom weeps, 
Wrong rules the land and waiting justice sleeps." 

Young men must be pure in word, thought and life. 
Men will never be pure in life until they better appreci- 
ate their own bodies, and especially their sexual 
natures. The body is the temple of God, and, next to 
the soul, the sexual nature is its chief occupant. The 
sexual nature gives grace and symmetry to the body, 
elasticity to the step, warmth to the blood, strength to 
the heart, force to the mind, firmness to the will, 
beauty and radiance to the face and enthusiasm and 
courage to the whole life. It gives to the behavior the 
grace and gallantry of the gentleman, to the emotions 



186 manhood's morning. 

the instincts and affections of lover, husband and 
father, and to the countenance the image of The Divine. 

Untold injury has been wrought by stigmatizing the 
sexual nature. Every boy, when he blooms into man- 
hood, should be taught that he enters an holy estate. 
The passions are not to be despised nor blasted by sin, 
but held and appreciated as a sacred possession and as 
the most attractive, noble and magnetic expression of 
manhood. 

Grant Allen, in "The New Hedonism" has beauti- 
fully and graphically described the sexual instinct: 
' 'Its alliance is with whatever is purest and most beauti- 
ful in us. To it we owe our love of bright colors, 
graceful forms, melodious sounds, rhythmical motion. 
To it we owe the evolution of music, of poetry, of ro- 
mance, of belles lettres; the evolution of painting, of 
sculpture, of decorative art, of dramatic entertainment. 
To it we owe the entire existence of our esthetic sense, 
which is, as a last resort, only a secondary sexual at- 
tribute. From it springs the love of beauty; around it 
all beautiful arts circle as their center. Its subtle 
aroma pervades all literature, and to it we owe the 
paternal, maternal and marital relations; the growth of 
the affections, the love of little pattering feet and baby 
laughter; the home, with all the dear associations that 
cluster around it; in one word, the heart and all that is 
best in it. 

"If we look around among the inferior animals, we 
shall see that the germs of everything which is best in 
humanity took their rise with them in the sexual in- 
stinct. The song of the nightingale or of Shelley's 
skylark is a song that has been acquired by the bird 
himself to charm the ears of his attentive partner. 
The chirp of the cricket, the cheerful note of the grass- 
hopper, the twittering of the sparrow, the pleasant caw 



WHAT YOUNG MKN MUST BE. iSj 

of the rookery — all these, Darwin showed, are direct 
products of sexual selection. Every pleasant sound 
that greets our ears from hedge or copse in a summer 
walk has the self-same origin. If we take away from 
the country the music conferred upon it by the sense of 
sex we shall have taken away every charm it possesses, 
save the murmur of the brooks, and the whispering of 
the breeze through the leaves at evening. No thrush, 
no linnet, no blackbird, would be left; no rattle of the 
night-jar over the twilight folds, no chirp of insect, no 
clatter of the tree-frog, no cry of the cuckoo from leafy 
covert. The whippoorwill and the bobolink would be 
mute as the serpent. Every beautiful voice in wild 
nature, from the mocking-bird to the cicala, is the 
essence of the love-call; and without such love-calls the 
music of the fields would be mute and the forest silent. 
"Not otherwise is it with the beauty which appeals 
to the eye. Every lovely object in organic nature owes 
its loveliness direct to sexual selection. The whole 
esthetic sense in animals had that for its origin. Every 
spot on the feathery wings of butterflies was thus pro- 
duced; every eye on the gorgeous glancing plume of 
the peacock. The bronze and golden hue of beetles, 
the flashing blue of the dragon-fly, the brilliant colors 
of tropical moths, the lamp of the glow-worm, the 
gleaming light of the firefly, spring from the same 
source. The infinite variety of crest and gorget among 
the iridescent humming-birds; the glow of the trogon, 
the barbets among the palm blossoms; the exquisite 
plumage of the birds of paradise; the bulb-and-socket 
ornament of the argus pheasant; the infinite hue of 
parrot and macaw; the strange bill of the gaudy toucon 
and the crimson wattle of the turkey still tell one story. 
The sun birds deck themselves for their courtship in 
ruby and topaz, in chrysoprase and sapphire. Even 



1 88 manhood's morning. 

the antlers of deer, the twisted horns of antelopes, and 
the graceful forms and dappled coats of so many other 
mammals have been developed in like manner by sex- 
ual selection. The very fish in the sea show similar 
results of esthetic preferences. The butterfly fins of 
the gurnard and the courting colors of the stickleback 
have but one explanation. I need not elaborate this 
point. Darwin has already made it familiar to most of 
us. Throughout the animal world almost every 
beautiful hue, almost every decorative adjunct is trace- 
able to the action of the sexual instinct. Animals are 
pleasing to the eye just in proportion to the amount of 
esthetic selection that their mates have exercised upon 
them; and they are most pleasing of all when most 
sexually vigorous, especially at the culminating point of 
the pairing season. Tennyson's familiar lines give a 
new meaning when we read them thus, as illustrating 
the persistent thread of connection between the esthetic 
sense in man and animals: 

" 'In the spring a fuller crimson comes 

upon the robin's breast; 
" 'In the spring the wanton lapwing gets 

himself another crest. 
11 'In the spring a livelier iris changes on 

the burnished dove; 
u ' In the spring a young man's fancy 

lightly turns to thoughts of love.' " 

"Oddly enough, the same thing is true in all prob- 
ability in the world of plants. Flowers are either the 
sexual organs themselves, as in the golden acacia, the 
meadow rue and the willow catkins; or else they are 
the expanded and colored surfaces in the neighborhood 
of the sexual organs, intended to allure the fertilizing 
insects, as in the rose, the lily, the buttercup and the 
orchid, True, these expanded surfaces are not, like 



WHAT YOUNG MEN MUST BE. 1 89 

the tail feathers of the lyre-bird or the plumage of the 
kingfisher, the result of deliberate selection on the part 
of the species itself which displays them. They are 
product of esthetic preferences exerted by the bee or 
butterfly or brush- ton gued lory. External organisms 
— birds and insects — have begoiten them. Siili, I hold 
that to any one who takes a wide and deep view of 
nature the fact it self is significant: In plants, as in ani- 
mals, beautiful adjuncts tend to develop themselves in 
immediate relation to the sexual function, and hardly 
at all elsewhere. 

"It is the same with fruits. Such exquisite objects 
as the pomegranate, bursting red through the rind on 
the tree; the orange, aglow among its glossy green 
foliage; the cherry, the plum, the mango and the cur- 
rant; the purple bloom on the grape, the blushing cheek 
•of the peach — what are they but the mature state of the 
ovary of the female flower? 

"Look at nature as a whole, and we shall see how 
truly all this is so. The song of birds, the chirp of in- 
sects, feather and fur, crest and antlers, the may in the 
hedgerow, the heather on the hill side, the berries on 
the holly, the crimson fruit of the yew-, the apple tree 
laden with the blushing blossoms in spring and with 
the blushing fruit in autumn, the great tropical flower- 
ing trunks in the forest, and the garrulous birds and 
bright insects that flit, flashing through them — all 
alike owe their beauty to sexual needs and esthetic 
preferences. If one goes on a country walk, almost 
every fair object that attracts the eyes, from the gorse 
to the lady-bird, from the stately heron to the daisy on 
the common, attracts them in virtue of some sexual 
adornment. 

"I have pointed out already in my little book on the 
color sense that the most brilliant and decorative birds, 



I90 MANHOOD S MORNING. 

insects or mammals, arc, every one of them, either 
flower hunters or fruit eaters; and that thus the entire 
beauty of the organic world, with the sole exception of 
the death- tints of autumn, is wholly due to a sexual 
origin. 

"Still less need I dwell on the share which sex has 
borne in the development of the sympathies and the 
domestic affections. The parent bird with the nestlings, 
the males which feed their sitting mates, the ewe with 
her lamb, strike the key-note of something higher than 
even the esthetic sentiment. Tenderness and pathos 
come in with the paternal and marital relation. The 
love of mate, the love of young have this origin. 
Think of the widowed wren that laments her lost 
partner; think of the love-bird that cannot consent to 
live when deprived of its companion; think of the very 
monkeys that refuse all food and die broken-hearted 
when the bodies of their dead mates are taken from 
them. 

4 'Thus, even below the human level, we see that the 
instinct of sex has been instrumental in developing all 
the finest feelings which the lower creation shares with 
us or foreshadows for us. The sense of beauty, the 
sense of duty, parental responsibility, paternal and 
maternal love, domestic affection, song, dance and dec- 
oration; the entire higher life in its primitive manifes- 
tation; pathos and fidelity; in a word, the soul, the 
soul itself in embryo — all rise from the love of the sexes. 

1 'Human life shows us the same thing in a more ad- 
vanced development. The tenderest and most pathetic 
element in life is love; round it all art, all romance, all 
poetry circle. The lovliest object on earth for the sane 
and healthy mind is a beautiful girl, a beautiful woman. 
The loveliest object art can represent in painting or 
sculpture is the nude male or female figure. Pure or 



WHAT YOUNG MEN MUST BE. 191 

half draped, it supplies the base of ail ideal artistic rep- 
resentation. Man is beautiful; woman is beautiful; 
both are most beautiful in the budding period and 
plentitude of their reproductive power. And love, 
which in itself is the most sacred and beautiful thing 
in the world, linked on every side with the tenderest 
affection for father, mother, sister, husband and wife 
for son or daughter — love thus lovely in its essence has 
begotten among all higher arts and all higher 
emotions.' ' 

There is a widespread impression that a pure and 
chaste mind is necessarily insipid, morose and incap- 
able of joy and pleasure. Just the opposite is true. 
The sweetest and most precious joys are as delicate as 
the life and fragrance of the lily. God clothes the 
highest delights and most enrapturing pleasures in 
spotless garments and he who besmirches them with 
filthy tongue or lustful eye robs life's most sacred 
fountains of their sweetness and beauty. 

"Self-reverence, self-krowled£f\ s^lf-control, 
These three alone lead life to sovereign power." 

It is not only possible, but it is imperatively necessary 
that the lives of men be as pure as those of women. 
It is shameful and wicked cowardice for men to erect a 
high standard of virtue for their sisters and a low 
standard for themselves. A pure life is the strength 
of man as it is the beauty of woman. 

"My strength is as the strength often 
Because my heart is pure." 

Purity of life is the palladium of earthly happiness; 
it is the stronghold of religion and the chief corner- 
stone of society. "He that hath it," says Milton: "is 
clad in an armor ot steel;" and Shakespeare says: 4 'it is 
tbe jewel of my house, bequeathed down from my 



192 manhood's morning. 

ancestors.' ' It is "the mother of wisdom and delibera- 
tion;" "the window in the soul through which young 
manhood hears the angels of heaven singing songs of 
peace and welcome over the birth place of its children. 1 * 

Reverence of the sexual nature has done more for 
the world than either power or wealth. It is the divine 
finishing touch in making a gentleman and is the har- 
binger of all the graces, .be they physical, moral or 
spiritual. It surrounds its possessor by an earthly 
paradise, it makes women appear angelic and lays upon 
the marriage altar a feast of love. God loves a pure 
man, and it is seldom such are found who are not 
genuine Christians. The lives of such men are a be- 
atitude, blessing the generation in which they live and 
giving to the fibre of the race pure blood, invincible 
nerve and sterling qualities of mind and character. 

Young men must be woman's loyal friend. Man and 
woman were created equal and neither was given do- 
minion over the other. Every true man holds sacred 
the estate of womanhood. Genuine galantry enthrones 
all women. 

Young men are peculiarly interested in woman's 
welfare. The girls of America are their sisters; they 
will become their sweethearts and life companions 
and will some day be the mothers of the nation. 
Woman ministers at the very fountain of life and happi- 
ness. Upon her health, her intelligence, her piety, 
her patience and constancy, her temper and her beauty 
depend the comfort and success of mankind. 

"Of earthly goods, the best is a good wife; 
A bad, the bitterest curse of human life." 

Of a good wife Jeremy Taylor says: "Her voice is 
sweet music, her smiles his brightest day, her kiss the 
guardian of his innocence, her arms the pale of his 
safety, the balm of his life; her industry his surest 



WHAT YOUNG MEN MUST BE. 1 93 

wealth, her economy his safest steward, her lips his 
faithful counselors, her bosom the softest pillow of his 
cares, and her prayers the ablest advocate of Heaven's 
b'essings on his head." To merit such a gift demands 
that man's heart be cure, that his lips be clean and 
that his life be free from guile. 

Young me?i must be religious. Of all the subjects 
which 3 T oung men are called upon to consider religion 
is of first importance. Religion equally concerns the 
entire human race. I do not feel called upon to 
champion the claims of religion nor to write a single 
word to prove its existence. He who cannot read it in 
the lives and characters of men and women is willfully 
blind. The foe in America to-day is not open infidelity 
but neglect and indifference toward the subject of re- 
ligion. 

Religion is all it claims to be. It is not a sentiment 
to feed the emotional nature. It is a moral and 
spiritual force and supplies man's highest needs. 
Through it man learns the way of eternal life, through 
it he learns of virtue and faith, hope and love. It 
moulds the character and sweetens the life, it exalts all 
that is noble and establishes the brotherhood of man. 

There are three cardinal things connected with re- 
ligion about which it is the duty of every young man 
to exercise convictions. These three things are: — The 
Bible, The Church and The Sabbath Day. 

The Bible is a young man's book. It is chiefly about 
young men — a record of their thoughts, their words 
and their deeds — and many of its teachings apply to 
them only. No book so upholds the supremacy of 
youth and young manhood. Threads of manly 
strength and vigor run through its pages from Eden to 
Patmos. It is written 4 'to young men because they 
are strong/ ■ It is the only safe guide; the only per- 



194 manhood's morning. 

feet rule of life. "Wherewithal shall a young man 
cleanse his way; by taking heed thereto according to 
thy word." 

The Jiible refers to young men and youths over two- 
hundred times. Its most staking characters are young 
men — 3 r oung kings, young prophets, young apostles 
and young heroes. The prototypes of Christ were 
young men and Jesus himself was a young man. 
"From my youth up," was the certificate of character 
in Bible times. The whole realm of religious thought 
and activity needs resetting in a more youthful and 
magnetic life. 

The Bible is not only a young man's book but it is 
our official standard. As long as America remains a 
Christian nation the Bible must continue as the light of 
its people. To ignore it is heathenism in the darkness 
of which virtue and liberty would not long survive. 

The Church is essential to every young man. He 
who faithfully and regularly goes to church receives 
benefits incalculable. The pulpit, as a rule, is supplied 
with earnest, well educated Christian men and the Church 
furnishes an education of the highest order and much 
of it is specially adopted to young men. 

The church has a mission peculiarly its own. It is 
divine in its nature and perfect in purpose and plan. 
Other organizations teach and practice noble principles 
but they lack vital essentials and fail to meet man's 
highest needs. There is no substitute for the Church. 

That the Church falls below what it should be none 
can deny. It lacks zeal, activity and sphitual power. 
That it lacks these things is the fault of young men. 
Kxcept in rare cases it is not the fault of the ministry, 
the aged or the women. Young men are derelict, dis- 
loyal and lazy. The Church is being assailed on ac- 
count of their shortcomings. The weakest point, the 



WHAT YOUNG MEN MUST BE. 195 

greatest breach in the church to-day is the void made 
by young men. The Church is as essential in the na- 
tion as the political government, and it is as much the 
duty of young men to reverence it and labor in its be- 
half as it was to enlist in the cause of the nation in its 
time of peril. 

The Church teaches not only spiritual truths, but 
patriotism, morality, ethics, refinement and culture. 
It affords the only desirable level where all classes and 
conditions meet as equals. It brings together the aged 
and the young, the learned and the ignorant, the rich 
and the poor and is the greatest and most elevating- 
social factor in the world. It creates the noblest in- 
centives, it promotes the deepest friendships and 
affords to young men and women the safest and most 
desirable ground on which to meet, enjoy each others' 
company, fall in love and marry under the skies. 

The Sabbath Day was made for man. Man needs it. 
The rest of one day in seven is just as essential to 
man's highest development as bread or sunlight or 
sleep. Man can do more work and better work by 
resting one day in seven than by a continuous, unre- 
mitting plod. Without the rest of the Sabbath labor 
becomes degrading to morals and debilitating to body. 

It would be a wise settlement of the Saturday versus 
Sunday controversy to compromise the matter by 
abandoning all general business and public service on 
both days. All business that brings men in contact 
with each other and all manufacturing and general 
labor could easily be transacted in five days. This 
would give one day for domestic improvement, orna- 
mentation, repairing and arranging the affairs of 
home, and one day for rest. It would give one much 
needed off-day and an opportunity to enjoy, with- 
out encroachment, one Sabbath each week. Domestic 



195 manhood's morning. 

and home affairs would thus receive a much needed at- 
tention, and the Sabbath Day would be relieved of 
much of that intense business pressure which now 
squeezes the life almost out of it. 

The Sabbath must not only be remembered, but it 
must be "kept holy." The influences of the Sabbath 
as a Holy Day are incalculably beneficial. It thus forms 
an oasis along the pathway of life. It inspires elevat- 
ing and serious meditation. "The Sabbath Day," 
says Emerson: "is the core of civilization." Sabbath 
Days, when remembered and kept holy, are like the 
waves of the ocean which follow each other in graceful 
outline, lifting man above the level of ordinary life and 
carrying him nearer a higher and happier existence; 
but when forgotten or spent in desecration they are 
like the tempestuous billows which bewilder with their 
madness and hurry us on to destruction. 

The Sabbath Day is one of the corner-stones of the 
Republic, a charter legacy coming to us as a part of the 
organic life of the nation. Modern ideas and customs 
are however transforming it into a day of worldly 
amusement and dissipation. It is the duty of young- 
men to arrest this tendency. From their ranks come 
most of the Sabbath breakers and it is their duty to 
maintain its sacredness. It should be used to promote 
natural affections and domestic fellowships; as a time 
for reflection and rest and as a day to promote morality, 
charity, piety and Christian worship. 

To make clear the cardinal principles which underlie 
success in life, I have epitomized them into seven para- 
graphs, in the form of a pledge. I have endeavored to 
embody nothing that could well be left out, and left 
nothing out the absence of which would weaken a 
popular vow. It is adapted especially to young men 
between the a^es of fourteen and twenty-eight. 



WHAT YOUNG MEN MUST BE. 1 97 

This pledge has been submitted to a large number of 
competent men in various sections of the nation and it 
has been pronounced eminently opportune and practi- 
cal. 

YOUNG MAN'S PLEDGE. 

(z) / do hereby promise to faithfully and industri- 
ously endeavor to earn an honest living, to practice char- 
ity and liberality, a?id if possible save a portion of my 
income. 

(2) I will lead a temperate life, and abstain from the 
use of tobacco in every form and from all alcoholic liquors 
as a beverage. 

(j>) I will not use vulgar or profane language, nor 
indulge in low or indecent conversation. 

(^ / will strive to lead a pure life a?id in no way de- 
file my body. 

(5) / will at all times reverence womanhood and 
treat every woman with that respect due a sister or mother. 

(6) I will keep the Sabbath day holy by avoiding all 
desecration and unnecessary labor, and I do promise to 
make the attendance upon the services of some church a 
habit of my life. 

(7) I do promise to keep a copy of The Bible and 
familiarize myself with its contents. 



198 manhood's morning. 

A pledge is simply an expressed plan of action to 
divide and direct the habits and efforts oflife. Through- 
out all history, vows, promises and pledges have 
formed the basis of the noblest efforts and highest 
achievements. Few things have done more for man 
than pledge signing. It brings the otherwise impos- 
sible within the range of the possible and makes diffi- 
cult things easy. It is an act which God recognizes 
and they are scattered all through the Bible history . 
Indeed, the Bible might be well considered as God's 
pledge to men. The life of Wendell Phillips was a 
pledge and he said ''Tens of thousands attest the value 
of the pledge. It never degraded; it only lifted them 
to a higher plane.* ' "What we need," Says the emi- 
nent Dr. Peloubet: "is a pledge signing revival.' ' 
Over a million members of the Young Peoples' So- 
cieties, have signed a pledge during the past few years, 
and it has been to thousands of them not only a re- 
straining but an inspiring and saving force. 

The pledge here presented is reasonable; it is not 
meddlesome in politics or religion. It forbids no real 
pleasure or joy. It will be easy to keep. It is easier 
to break off all bad habits than simply one. The 
failure of the temperance pledge so noticeable is due to 
the fact that too many habits remain untouched. It is 
easier to quit both tobacco and liquor than either alone. 

A pledge that is comprehensive, and which comple- 
ments what is sacred and vital in manhood, secures 
the confidence and respect of those who sign it, and it 
oecomes, of itself, a source of courage and strength. 
At best it is humiliating to sign a pledge to be correct 
in some particular spot, but to promise to be clean, pure, 
square and upright, from head to foot, is a matter of 
which to be proud. A pledge embracing one idea 
lends to weaken from the time it is made, but a vow to 



WHAT YOUNG M£N MUST BE. 1 99 

change the whole life grows stronger and is finally in- 
vulnerable. Never were definite purposes and fixed 
determinations regarding habits of life, traits of char- 
acter and plans of action more needed among young 
men than now. 

The signing and keeping of this pledge would bring 
benefits incalculable to young men. It would promote 
self-respect and the confidence of others. Confidence, 
genuine and whole souled, in boys and 3 r oung men is 
the ' 'fatted calf ' of civilization. Too many young men 
are as beggars at the door of popular opinion. To 
gain the confidence of the public is the first step to 
success. When young men secure the full confidence 
of their superiors in years, wealth and influence a 
bright day of prosperity and rejoicing will be at hand. 

The social effects of a pure and consistent manhood 
are beyond measure. The most powerful disinfectant 
in the world is a pure young man. When young men 
become chaste and pure they will swarm forth, millions 
of them,- and inaugurate a new social era. Refined 
aesthetic tastes will develop and more wholesome and 
elevating forms of amusements will be demanded. A 
new market will be opened for the products of artistic 
and cultivated handicraft. A new prosperity, busy in 
supplying improved desires with improved supplies, 
will mark the steps of progress. 

Keeping such a pledge would reduce the amount of 
sickness to a minimum. The death rate among pure, 
temperate, worthily occupied men between fourteen and 
forty is extremely small. Sickness, to such, during 
these years, unless inherited or of the contagious sort, 
is extremely rare. By leading pure and temperate 
lives, the physical resistance against disease, which is 
now so low among the intemperate and licentious, will 
become strong, minor ailments will disappear and the 



200 manhood's morning. 

more serious and fatal diseases will respond much more 
readily to medical treatment. The delusion that it is 
the Hand of Providence, instead of vice and wickedness, 
that strikes men down will be exploded. 

Men will become firmer in muscle, stronger in bone, 
richer in blood, brighter in eye, sweeter in temper, 
keener in intellect, more courageous in will and more 
manly and spiritual in heart. They will become more 
magnetic, their personality will be more richly endowed 
and gallantry will become a delight and chivalry a 
second nature. 

"The reason firm, the temperate will, 
Endurance, foresight, strength and skill." 

As men improve in habits hereditary influences be- 
come recuperative and constructive and each succeed- 
ing generation find it easier to do right That ideal — 
the genius of law — which makes it difficult to do wrong 
and easy to do right will become the natural heritage 
of citizenship. Good health and good manners might 
be made contagious. It is possible for young men to 
so purify and enrich the elements of kinship that each 
succeeding generation will not only be stronger and 
wiser, but will inherit a momentum, constantly increas- 
ing in force, towards physical, intellectual, moral and 
Spiritual perfection. 

By adopting such principles as are set forth in this 
pledge young men will meet the demands of the hour 
and become prepared to lead in every department of 
thought and action. Pauperism, drunkenness, crime 
and misery will disappear. Men will become better 
educated and more refined, they will wear better clothes, 
use belter language, seek new joys and cultivate 
higher attainments. They will grow more polite and 



manhood's morning. 201 

sociable, more kind-hearted and charitable. They will 
become more independent and wealth will become 
diffused among the masses. Men will love with a 
holier affection and enjoy a happier and more contented 
career. This pledge aims in the direction of man's 
best hopes, noblest aspirations and highest and most 
useful possibilities, and if universally signed and con- 
sistently lived by young men, the effect would be to 
elevate them to their normal, legitimate and God-in 
tended sphere, and to hasten the glad day when the 
kingdoms of this w r orld shall become the kingdoms of 
our Lord and his Christ. 



Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and 
subdue it. God. 

"Because thou art 

The struggler; and from thy youth 
Thy humble and patient life 
Hath been a strife 

And battle for the truth; 
Nor hast thou paused nor halted, 
Nor ever in thy pride 
Turned from the poor aside, 
But with deed and word and pen 
Hast served thy fellow men; 
Therefore art thou exaltedl" 
Where should any being find its highest blessedness bub 
in the legitimate exercise of its highest power. 

Mark Hop Inns. 

It is no man's business whether he has genius or not; 
work he must. John Ruskin. 

The powers of man have not been exhausted. Nothing 
has been done by him that cannot be better done. Emerson. 
God never sent any man on a fool's errand. 

T. DeWitt Talmagc. 

Ah! the key of our life, that passes all words, opens all 
locks, is not I will, but / must — i must — I MUST — and I do it. 

A. II. C lough. 

If our civilization stands, this will not be because it is 
incapable of destruction, but because its sons and daughters, 
roused by its dangers, rally to its defense. 

Samuel Lane Loomis. 

"Why, now I see there's mettle in thee, and even from 
this instant, do build on thee a better opinion than ever be- 
fore." 



CHAPTER IX. 



WHAT YOUNG MEN MUST DO. 



Every young man in America was made for a pur- 
pose and that purpose was to do something. Not one 
lives who has 1 not a mission, a duty to perform. 
Whether his talents be one or five, conspicuous or 
obscure, strong or weak, they were given him, not to 
bury, but to exercise and improve. 

Young men must act for themselves. Each genera- 
tion of young men are the pioneers of a new age. It 
always has been and always will be So. The rest of 
the world keeps step with its young men. When they 
march forward the world moves on; when they aim 
high and strive upward civilization advances; when 
they are loyally enlisted in the cause of right happiness 
and safety are assured to the people. 

What is true of the world at large is distinctively 
true of America, and it was never so true of America 
as it is to-day. Emerson said: "As goes America so 
goes the world;" and another has added, with no less 
truth but with still greater force: "As go the young 
men of America so goes America." If these state- 
ments are true prophetic wisdom the future history of 
the world and the destinies of the human race are 
within the grasp of the young men of America. I ac- 
cept the proposition as a sacred verity, and believe that 
the uppermost need of the hour is that young men. 



204 manhood's morning. 

awake to the duties and responsibilities which these 
facts impose. 

It is useless for young men to sit down and grumble 
and lament over our business, financial and industrial 
systems, or our social, political or religious conditions. 
The wrongs and evils and unjust conditions that exist, 
and which have become a part of our national life, will 
never be argued nor resolved out of existence. The 
only remedy for these conditions is for young men to 
enter the various fields of action determined that better 
conditions shall prevail, and that the world shall receive 
the benefit of their strength, vigor and enthusiasm. 

It is useless for young men to expect help from the 
rich and influential. It is worse than useless for them 
to wait for anybody's shoes. They need not hope to 
supplant or frustrate their superiors. They must flan 
and build their own fortunes and do it by reaching 
farther, climbing higher, digging deeper and striving 
more unselfishly and constantly than those who are 
ahead of them. 

Too much is being done already for many young 
men. Help is the last thing they need. Nothing 
spoils them so quickly. Thousands have been ruined 
by learning to depend upon others instead of themselves. 
The world should be laid upon their shoulders. The 
duties and perplexities of the world — its sufferings and 
its wrongs, its hatreds and oppressions, its ignorance 
and filth, its fossilisms and its perversions — should be 
heaped upon and piled around young men and they 
should not find pure air, comfort, rest, peace or even 
sleep or bread until they earn it by digging and fight- 
ing their way out and trampling these things under 
their feet. 

Young men must not stand upon the brink of life's 
business channels and shrink and shiver into despair, 



WHAT YOUNG MEN MUST DO. 205 

but they must plunge in, and through their own in- 
dustry, grit and brains overcome all obstacles and win 
success. 

Too many stand and beg for the crumbs that fall 
from the tables of the rich, and starve as they deserve. 
Young men arc in duty bound to aim high and not be 
too easily pleased. Too many lives are wasted in 
hewing wood and drawing water and doing things out 
of date. Thousands seek work for their uneducated 
muscle while the world is looking for brains. They 
hunt in the dark and dingy corners of enterprise for 
jobs at starvation wages while the world is offering 
comfortable salaries and honor to men of worth and 
sagacity. 

That so many young men find it difficult to secure 
employment is not always a cruel fate. Their ill 
success is often only a whip to spur them on to some- 
thing better. When they get behind where they be- 
long they must expect to suffer. When young men 
are thrown out upon their own resources it is simply 
the American Eagle stirring her nest and forcings 
* 'Young America' ' to shift for himself, to manage his 
own affairs and live independent of others. 

Seeking employment in factories, stores and offices 
needs to be discouraged. Too many spend their lives 
in routine, automatic service like so many machines. 
Such avocations lack permanency and tend to sap the 
higher qualities of mind and character. They rob men 
of the art and ambition required to venture into the 
more independent realms of action. By so doing they 
grow narrow and timid and distrustful of themselves 
and stripped of their native pluck and ambition they 
sink their individuality and ability in the industrial 
monopolies of the nation. Every man should have a 
genuine and direct interest in his life's work — in its 



206 manhood's morning. 

profits, in its management and in its general success. 
The hands of men should not only be employed but 
their brains and their hearts — their might — should have 
a living interest in what they do. 

Young men must work. Persistent, concentrated 
work is the price of genuine success. Achievement is 
too often looked upon as the result of genius or luck. 
Genius is greatly overestimated and luck comes to but 
few. Ninety-nine young men in every hundred must 
depend for success upon their own energies. ' * A genius 
for hard work is the best kind of genius. * ' 

It is the general impression that orators, poets, in- 
ventors and others do not have to apply themselves. 
This belief has done much harm. It is claimed that 
Demosthenes, the world's greatest orator, had no talent 
whatever, but owed his success entirely to hard work. 
He was sickly born, nicknamed on account of ugliness, 
and stammered. He shaved the hair from one-half of 
his head to enforce seclusion in a cave; filled his mouth 
with pebbles to correct stuttering; practiced daily be- 
fore a mirror; copied and recopied the History of 
Thucydides eight times and committed it to menory ; 
studied under all the great orators of his time and spent 
eight years in preparing "the greatest oration of the 
greatest orator of the world/ ' 

L,ord Brougham allowed himself only four hours 
sleep. He recopied his greatest speech in the House 
of Lords twenty times and practiced it for many weeks. 
Cicero was under constant drill for thirty years and 
practiced daily before some critic or friend; his life was 
an incessant drudgery. Pericles never went into the 
street except to the Forum or Senate and dined out 
only once during his life. Edmund Burke disclaimed 
any superior talent. He worked constantly and would 
have his speeches printed two or three times privately 



WHAT YOUNG MEN MUaT DO. 20J 

for revision before giving tliem to the public. It was 
said of William Pitt that perhaps no man, except 
Cicero, ever submitted to an equal amount of drudgery. 
Chesterfield was almost infinite in painstaking and was 
an indefatigable worker. Lord Chatham went through 
Bailey's large dictionary twice, carefully studying each 
word. He translated all the orations of Cicero and 
practiced daily before a mirror. William Cobbett said: 
"I have not during my life spent more than thirty-five 
minutes at table, including all the meals of the day." 

Daniel Webster worked twelve hours daily for fifty 
years. He studied the dictionary almost daily for 
twenty years. He was an early riser and his classical 
sentences, now so familiar, were revised over and over 
again and cost him endless toil. Patrick Henry is re- 
ported as being lazy, but the fact remains that he had 
a large library, was an accomplished Latin and Greek 
scholar and studied several hours daily. Rufus Choate 
was a slave to the classics and for forty years not a 
day passed without an effort to perfect himself in speech. 
Henry Clay made it a rule of his life to talk daily to 
the cattle, the cornfields and the woods. Charles Sum- 
ner studied day and night all his life. Alexander 
Hamilton said: "When I have a subject in hand I 
study it profoundly. Day and night it is before me." 

John Wesley rose at four, summer and winter; 
preached twice daily for fifty years and rode over 270, 
000 miles during his life. Adam Clarke spent forty 
years on his Commentary. Noah Webster labored for 
thirty-six years upon his dictionary and crossed the 
ocean twice to gather materials. Gibbon spent twenty- 
six years on his "Decline and Fall of the Roman Em- 
pire.' ' Bancroft labored for twenty-six years on his 
"History of the United States." Motley, although a 
classical literary man, spent ten 3'ears in diligent study 



2o8 MANHOOD'S MORNING. 

before even beginning the history that made him 
famous. Darwin was not quick to think or write. His 
patience and industry were unbounded. He said: "A 
man who dares waste one hour of time has not dis- 
covered the value of life." Charles Dickens was an 
inveterate slave to hard work. Milton rose at four in 
winter and at five in summer. Massillon recopied some 
of his sermons twenty times. 

Says Edgar Allan Poe: "Most writers — poets in 
especial — prefer having it understood that they com- 
pose by a species of fine frenzy, an ecstatic intuition; 
and would positively shudder at letting the public take 
a peep behind the scenes. . . — in a word, at the wheels 
and pinions, the tackle for scene-shifting, the step-lad- 
ders and demon-traps, the cock's feathers, the red 
paint and the black patches, which in ninety-nine cases 
out of the hundred, constitute the properties of the 
literary histrio" Poe is considered America's greatest 
poetic genius and "The Raven" is his best production; 
yet of this he himself wrote: "no one point in its com- 
position is referable either to accident or intuition, — 
the work proceeded step by step to its completion, with 
the precision and rigid consequence of a mathematical 
problem." 

Virgil labored eleven years on his ^Eneid and then 
considered it imperfect. Thomas Gray spent seven 
years in writing his ' 'Elegy in a Country Church Yard." 
The fact that Bryant wrote his "Thanatopsis" at the 
age of eighteen everybody knows; that he revised, 
corrected, transposed and rewrote it no less than ore 
hundred times before giving it to the public is known 
to but few. Goethe, the German poet and author, was 
a great genius but a greater prodigy at hard work. 

>Sir Isaac Newton said: " Whatever service I have 
done the public was not owing to any extraordinary 



WHAT YOUNG MEN MUST DO. 209 

•sagacity, but solely to industry and patient thought. 1 ' 
Thomas A. Edison has taken out over seven hundred 
patents but claims to have made only one discovery 
through accident. He worked eighteen to twenty 
hours daily for seven months to perfect the phono- 
graph. He experimented patiently and methodically 
with 1800 substances in solving the problem of 
Roentgen's X rays. He and his assistants worked 
twenty hours daily and used their eyes so severely that 
after a few hours' sleep they had to use a solvent to 
open them. His success has been due to "an infinite 
capacity for taking pains. " 

The Atlantic cable cost Cyrus W. Field nearly nine- 
teen years of anxious watching and ceaseless toil. He 
said: ' 'Often my heart has been ready to sink. Many 
times when wandering in the forests of Newfoundland, 
in the pelting rain, or on the decks of ships stormy 
nights alone, far from home, I have almost accused my- 
self of madness and folly." George Stephenson spent 
fifteen years in perfecting the locomotive. Watt worked 
for thirty years on the condensing engine. Hard rub- 
ber cost Goodyear ten years of study, poverty and ridi- 
cule. John Hunter allowed himself only four hours' 
sleep. Michael Angelo slept in his clothes when en- 
gaged in his greatest works and kept food within 
reach eating a bite at a time. Mendelssohn, Handel 
and Beethoven were all prodigies at incessant work. 

No Theologian ever labored more diligently than did 
Benjamin West in evolving his Bible paintings. 

There is danger of young men losing the art of work. 
God has put us here to labor. Before each life stretches 
its highest possibilities and to reach the summit is the 
duty of all. Neither genius nor luck alone will prevail. 
Work must win the race. There are no sinecures 
in life's highway. Everyone must work with 



210 manhood's morning. 

hands, brain and strength. Success is reached by 
being active, awake, ahead of the crowd; by aiming 
high, pushing ahead honestly, diligently, patiently; 
by climbing, digging, saving; by forgetting the past, 
using the present, trusting in the future; by honoring 
God, having a purpose, fainting not, determining to win. 

"Manhood, like gold, is tested in the furnace, 
A fire that purifies is fierce and strong, 
Bare statues gain art's ideal of perfection 
By skillful stroke of chisel wielded long." 

Young men must destroy pessimism. Popular 
opinions regarding life, happiness, success and progress 
are barnacled with cynical and pessimistic ideas. 
There is a gloomy, sour impression, almost universal, 
that the world is as happy and mankind as healthy 
and prosperous as God intended they should be; that 
all the great men are dead; that the good things are 
intended for the few and that the majority of mankind 
would not amount to anything under any conditions. 
Many believe that 

"Man to misery is born! 

Born to drudge, and sweat and suffer." 

Not long since a well known speaker declared that 
"We cannot expect men of the present day to equal 
the great masters of the past." When a good or great 
man dies we are apt to believe that 

"He was a man, take him for all in all, 
I shall not look upon his like again," 

thus tacitly acknowledging that the human race, like 
the ancient w r onders of the world, is tottering to ruin. 
Such pessimistic ideas are a travesty upon manhood 
and gnaw at the very vitals of hope, ambition and 
success. 

America will yet lead the world in unfolding God's 
plans in blessing humanity. The greatest men are yet 



WHAT YOUNG MEN MUST DO. 211 

to be born and the grandest achievements are yet to be 
wrought. And why should it not be so? Has God 
lost his omnipotence and his love for the world? Has 
mankind buried its genius and talents and have its hands 
forgotten their cunning? Have earth's best harvest 
fields been garnered, its fairest beauties plucked, and 
its richest treasures absorbed? Is the world's greatest 
handicraft an ancient ruin? Are its brightest and best 
men ashes and dust? A thousand times no! The 
world is yet in its infancy; the glory of a new era is 
before us; a bright, happy, prosperous age — The King- 
dom of God — will surely come. 

America is destined to fill a mission and win a great- 
ness distinctively her own. Neither her own proud 
past nor the trophies of foreign lands can measure her 
future progress. 

It is impossible to perpetuate the eloquence of De- 
mosthenes, Webster, Cicero, Burke, Everett or 
O' Connell in cold type. But greater orators than these 
will yet live and their words will inspire the hearts of 
future generations. Wilberforce, Washington, Jeffer- 
son and Adams gave to the nation the principles of 
liberty, and Lincoln, Phillips, Sumner and Grant have 
established these principles in the land, but greater 
statesmen and heroes than these must yet teach liberty 
to be just and generous, wise and contented. 

The names of Hippocrates, Pare, Jenner, Pasteur, 
Hunter, Rush, Gross and Agnew are written high upon 
the scroll of fame in Medicine, but physicians will soon 
live, infinitely more correct in diagnosis and treatment 
than were these Nestors of their age. Philosophy is 
proud of the names of Bacon, Socrates, Plato and 
Franklin, but wisdom greater than they even dreamed 
is already broadcast over the land. Newton, Young, 
•Comte and Spencer, in the field of Science, and Fara- 



212 MANHOOD S xvlORNING. 

day, Priestley, Berthollet and Davy, in the realm of 
Chemistry, simply stood upon the first levels of earth's 
exhaustless mines whose depths shall yet be explored 
and made subject to man's power and wilL r - 

"Earth ani Ocean, Flame and Wind 

Have unnumbered secrets still, 
To be ransacked when you will, 

For the service of mankind; 
Science is a child as yet, 

And her power and scope will grow, 
And her triumphs in the future 

Shall diminish toil and woe." 

The world's best music and poetry belong to the 
future. The productions of the gifted Haydn, the 
wonderful Mendelssohn, the magnificent Beethoven 
and the incomparable Mozart are all exotic to the 
American ear and climate. Human experiences have 
been sung in rhyme and metre by Homer, Virgil, 
Shakespeare, Milton, Tennyson, Burns, Longfellow, 
Bryant, I/well, Cowper, Whittier and Holmes, but they 
echo the past rather than inspire the present or 
illumine the future. Song and poetry, more than laws, 
shape history but they must be ahead of, not behind, the 
times. Every nation and every age require their own 
song and rhyme. No matter how exquisite and tran- 
scendent they may be, time will mar their vital essence. 
America will yet produce a music and verse of its own, 
attuned to its own clime, suited to the age that in- 
spires them and cheering the pathway of mankind to 
the highest summits. 

The works of Dickens, Scott, Hugo, Cooper, Haw- 
thorne, Collins, Thackeray, Eliot and Irving are all 
antiquated and out of date. Their vernacular, and the 
conditions in which they were plotted have become 
faded and obscure. Nature needs clothing in new 
beauties and Nature's heart needs to be touched and 



WHAT YOUNG MEN MUST DO. 2IJ 

quickened by new themes. 

Watt, Stephenson, Fulton, Whitney, Howe, Field, 
Morse, McCormick, Edison and others have revealed 
ajiew civilization, yet invention was never so prolific 
and startling and the future is inconceivably promising. 

For four centuries, led by Pestalozzi, Froebel, Jeffer- 
son and Horace Mann and a legion of co-workers, edu- 
cation has been climbing up through strata of super- 
stition, error and doubt but it is now ready for a new 
life. The conquests of learning have scarcely begun 
but knowledge will yet fill the earth as the waters 
cover the deep. Even the works of Jesus Christ will 
be surpassed by those who shall follow after him. He 
healed the sick, restored the blind and deaf and dumb; 
lie made the lame to walk and the dead to rise and live 
again. Yet it was he who said: "He that belie veth on 
me the works that I do he shall do also, and greater 
works than these shall he do. M 

Future progress will represent the masses rather than 
the few. * 'It seems very certain' ' says Phillips Brooks : 
4 'that the world is to grow better and licher in the 
future, . . . not by the magnificent achievements of 
the highly gifted few, but by the patient faithfulness of 
the onie-talented many." More reciprocal and diffused 
conditions between the gifted and less favored aie 
destined to prevail. The parable of the talents not 
only shows the intimate relation between the gifted and 
ordinary, but also that the five talented ca?i and the 
one talented mast fulfill their mission. All classes will 
recognize the common brotherhood, all will aid the 
common good and all will secure a deserved shaie of 
success. 

Young men must endure and transcend fogy ism. The 
world is as full of fogyism as water is of microbes and 
there are a million in every drop. Fogyism is the self- 



214 manhood's morning. 

imposed jury which sits in judgment and, without 
even a mock trial, condemns and pronounces sentence 
upon its victims. It is as old as sin and resembles it 
closely. It has followed civilization from the beginning 
and is alive and lusty as ever. For sixty centuries it 
has cried: "It won't work." "It can't be done." '%et 
good enough alone." "I told you so" — free to all. 
From the moss-covered heights of self- content it sings: 

"Stand ye still! ye restless nationSt 

And be happy where you are, 

Change is rash and never wise 

If ye meddle ye will mar." , •.__.. 

Fogyisni has ridiculed, scoffed, pooh-poohed, hissed, 
and persecuted almost every good man and every im- 
provement since the world began. No penalty is too 
base for its prejudice, no missile is too vile for its hate. 
It will fire' anathemas from the pulpit or wrath from 
the platform; it will hurl calumny from the pew or 
rotten eggs from the mob. 

' 'Truths would you teach to save a sinking land, 
All fear, none aid you, and few undei stand." 

Long before the rivers were channels of commerce 
they served to protect new nations from old enemies; 
mountains have simply been fences to separate fogyisms 
too desperate to live neighbors; oceans have been too 
narrow to insure safe lands of refuge ' to men with 
thoughts and opinions of their own. 

Galileo, after inventing the clock pendulum, the tele- 
scope, and devoting his life for otheis, was forced to 
bow his venerable head, whitened by seventy winters, 
and "abjure, curse and detest the aforesaid errors and 
heresies. ' ' Old and blind and imprisoned, he exclaimed: 
"My name is erased from the book of the living." 
"The Revolution of the Celestial Orbs" cost Copernicus 
twenty-two years of labor but he dared not publish it. 



WHAT YOUNG MEN MUST DO. 215 

Roger Bacon was persecuted for his wisdom, accused of 
magic; his books were burned in public, and he was 
imprisoned for ten years. 

For conceiving steam navigation, DeCaus was pro- 
nounced insane and thrown into the mad-house. When 
John Filch invented a steamboat, the public, not even 
FranVlin, would notice it. He sat down and wrote: 
"Spine more powerful man will get fame and riches 
from my invention' ' and then committed suicide. 
Robert Fulton tells us that during the entire time he 
was building his steamboat: "Never did a single e?i- 
couraging remark, a bright hope or a warm wish cross 
my path ." 

The steam engine cost Watt almost martyrdom. He 
said: ' 'The struggles I have had with natural diffi- 
culties and with ignorance, prejudices and villainies of 
mankind, have been very great. . . . There is nothing 
more foolish than inventing.' ' Rapid locomotion was 
strongly condemned. Riding rapidly "would injure 
people." "They would swallow wind;" "lose their 
breath." "The cattle would be frightened to death," 
and Parliament was requested to limit speed to nine 
miles an hour. United States Chancellor Livingston 
wrote an article proving railroads utterly impossible. 

The use of gas was ridiculed by the great chemist, 
Davy, and Wollaston, the scientist, said: "They might 
as well attempt to use a slice out of the moon." 

Demonstrating the circulation of the blood cost Dr. 
Harvey many of his patients and the physicians violent- 
ly assailed him, not. one over forty years old admitting 
the truth of his discovery. Vaccination cost Jenner 
sixteen years experimenting and vehement opposition; 
societies being started and journals printed to oppose 
it. . The eminent discoverer, Priestly, had his house 
pillaged, its contents burned by a mob and he was 



2 1 5 manhood's morning. 

forced to flee from his country. 

Columbus encountered incessant ridicule and oppo- 
sition. His crew assailed him to the verge of mutiny, 
he was chained on board his own ship, imprisoned by 
his own countrymen and died poor, neglected and 
broken-hearted. 

Charles V. in an edict said: "No one shall print, 
write, copy, keep, conceal, sell, buy, or give any book 
written by Martin Luther, or any other heretic. 
Another edict read: "All heretics shall be put to death." 
The churches were closed against John Wesley and on 
several occasions he had to flee for his life. Fox, the 
founder of the Society of Friends, was imprisoned. 
William Penn, a prominent member, was disowned by 
hi* parents, ostracised and sent to jail; a clergyman 
wrote a book against the sect under the rancorous title 
of * 'Hell let Loose.' ' Sunday Schools were at first op- 
posed. When Miss Lathrop started one in Connecticut 
it w r as turned out of the church, then out of the school 
house, then out of the court house; but she kept on and 
in fifty years this school had sent out twenty -six 
ministers and hundreds of Christian workers; H. P. 
Haven, "The Model Superintendent," being, as a 
small boy, a charter scholar. 

Fogyism has always opposed liberty and independ- 
ence. When the colonists declared for liberty and 
said: "We mutually pledge to each other our lives, our 
fortunes and our sacred honor," it aroused the most 
intense antagonism of the most powerful nation in the 
world. Triumph over slavery in England cost Wilber- 
f orce nineteen years of * 'slander, insult, bitterness of 
hope deferred, the coldness and treachery of friends 
and the persistent malice of enemies." Freedom in 
America made Wendell Phillips" as an outcast. . . 
deserted and avoided, as though stricken with the 



WHAT YOUNG MEN MUST DO. 21 7 

leprosy," it made Garrisou a prisoner, a scapegoat and 
a target for the mob; it cost Lincoln martyrdom and 
the Nation the TfVs blood of hundreds of thousands of 
its noblest and bravest men. 

Were it not for young men progressive enterprise 
would almost cease. The old, as a rule, aie skeptical 
and oppose new ideas. Every generation and every 
life develops a new history. 

"New occasions teach new duties; 
Time makes arc'ent good uncouth; 
Tiuy matt upward, still, au I onward, 
Who would keep abreas': of Truth. 
Lo! before us gleam her camp-fires! 
We, o ir.<-e ves, must Pilgrims be. 
Launch our Maj flower, and steer boldly 
Through the desperate winter sea, 
Nor attempt the Future's portal 
With the Pact's blood-rusted key." 

Difficulties and oppositions develop the heroic in 
young men. But for the husks the prodigal would 
never have feasted on fatted calf. Hisses from the 
crowd kindled the fires of eloquence in Demosthenes. 
"O, what a stupid ass!" from his teacher turned a lazy 
boy into Adam Clarke. The ridicule and sarcasm of 
Parliament made Disraeli the greatest man in England. 
Bitter opposition was an inspiration to Martin Luther; 
the more anjry he was the more zealously could he 
preach, pray and work. Bedford Jail and Bunyan 
wrote "Pilgrims' Progress"; neither could do it alone. 
u 'There is no possible success,' ' said Dr. Holmes, 
"without some opposition as a fulcrum." 

Men are not roused into action by recompense, 
pleasures, hope of ease, or sugar-plums of any sort, but 
by trials, abnegation^ hardships and even martyrdom. 
Adversity awakens talent; the greater the obstacles the 
more earrnest the zeal; the stronger the opposition the 
more heroic and determined is the life of the true man. 



218 manhood's morning. 

Young men must perfect the health and physique of the 
race. Young men only can do this. From two to five 
generations of pure, undefiled manhood would produce 
a race without an inherited blemish. America will 
never be great or good, strong or wise until its people 
are pure blooded, pure brained and healthy. Every 
fireside is interested in this subject. ' 'Come, let us live 
for our children," said the great teacher, Froebel. "Be- 
gin to train your children twenty years before they are 
born," said the poet- physician, Holmes. Too much 
stress is placed upon motherhood, and not enough up- 
on the fatherhood of posterity. Sentiment demands 
pure mothers, but God demands pure fathers. It is 
the "sins of the fathers" which blight the children. 
It is when the fathers eat "sour grapes" that the teeth 
of the children are "set on edge." "The glory of a 
child is its father," said vSolomon. Nothing counts for 
more than a reliable pedigree, and nowhere is it more 
consistent in its manifestations than in our children. 
Most children are like their parents — only more so. 

The utmost effort is being made to improve the stock, 
species, or varieties among animals, fruits, vegetables 
and flowers, and why not give as much attention to 
the improvement and perfection of the highest type of 
creation — man? It is as essential that the people be 
taught to know and respect the laws concerning 
heredity, as those referring to political economy. It 
is as important to know how to preserve good health 
and prevent disease, as it is to master some craft where- 
by to secure food, clothing and shelter. 

It is for young men, and not for the doctors, to drive 
disease, pain, deformity and premature death from the 
land. Every child born healthy proves that all may, 
accidents excepted, be so blessed, and such will be the 
case when the bodies of young men become the temples 



WHAT YOUNG MEN MUST DO. 219 

of purity that God intended that they should be. The 
race will not suffer sickness, pain and deformity any 
longer than they are necessary and self-inflicted. 

Young men can decree that there shall be no more 
consumption, scrofula, specific ulcers, cancers, loath- 
some catarrh, insanity and imbecility; no diseases too 
vile to mention — no wicked and hellish hereditary 
blush stamped upon a daughter's cheek, and no alluring 
and suggestive twinkle in her eye; no inherited appetites 
to weaken the will of a son and no father's sin to drag 
him down to ruin. 

Too little attention is paid to physical development. 
Religion excepted, health is the highest concern. In- 
deed, religion and health are wedded virtues. Much of 
the sin in the world is disease and much of the religion 
we meet is good health. Health is the vital principle 
of bliss and .'the .chief source of success. A healthy 
stomach and a liver that never complains render a 
man, not only happy, but forceful and invulnerable. 
No seriously defective young man should ever marry, 
and there should be laws regulating such marriages. 
An era of common sense and conscience should sup- 
plant prevailing sentimentalisms in love affairs. The 
time has come when, 'not only health, but the sensibili- 
ties, faculties and character are born rather than ac- 
quired — when all are severely tested and tried and only 
the fittest survive. 

Pure blood should paint the cheeks, and an upright 
fatherhood should inspire the heart of every boy and 
girl born upon American soil. It is criminal for young 
men to flagrantly ignore these subjects as they do; It 
is the duty of young men to become the fathers of an 
improved race— of children inheriting all the advan- 
tages of faithful vigor; strong in muscle and elastic 
in limb, "clear of eve and magnetic of expression; sv'm- 



220 MANHOOD'S MORNING. 

metrical in faculties and temperaments, modest in man- 
ners and cultured in habits; with minds sound and well 
poised and with wills kindly set but invincible as steel. 

"Nor love nor honor, wealth nor power, 
Can give the heait a cheerful hour, 
When health is lost. Be timely wise; 
With health all taste of pleasure flies." 

Young men must destroy ignorance. As a cause of 
misery, degradation and unhappiness, ignorance stands 
first. It is more destructive than poverty or disease, 
and ruins more lives than temptation and willfulness 
combined. Through lack of knowledge the people 
perish. Next to sin, ignorance is the world's curse; 
knowledge is its cure. Poverty, hunger, misery, rags, 
squalor, sickness and premature death are little else 
than the fruits of ignorance. According to statistics, 
ignorance, in the form of incompetency and inexperi- 
ence, causes more failures in business than extrava- 
gance, neglect, competition, speculation, fraud and un- 
wise credit combined. And what is true in the matter 
of business is still more true in professional life and in 
the realms of labor. Ignorance is darkness, weakness, 
failure and ruin, while knowledge is light, strength, 
success, opportunity and life. Ignorance is God's worst 
enemy and Satan's best friend. And to none is ignor- 
ance so great a curse, and to none is knowledge so great 
a boon as to young men. It is the duty of every one 
to thoroughly detest ignorance. 

The progress and success of the future will be in- 
tellectual. Education, culture, science, art, ethics and 
refinement will create and establish demand and supply. 
There is no knowledge that is not power. Progress is 
simply more light. A foolish notion exists that "the 
world is growing weaker and wiser/ ' Such a thing- 
is impossible; only ignorance can impair; genuine wis- 



WHAT YOUNG MEN MUST DO. 221 

•dom always improves, edifies and constructs. l 

Ignorance is a chief cause of business depressions and 
hard times. The labor, financial and other political 
and social questions are largely battles between ignor- 
ance and knowledge. Nothing will bring substantial 
and permanent prosperity so surely as the spread of 
education and culture. Indeed, there is no other way 
to establish permanent and genuine thrift. Only as 
knowledge, in its broadest and best sense, increases, 
will the capacity to desire and enjoy and the ability to 
produce multiply. 

The demand for intellectual workers is boundless and 
will never be fully supplied, while the demand for 
manual labor is limited and constantly growing less. 
With new knowledge come new abilities and powers, 
new comforts and new necessities. As a rule, it is 
easier for an enlarged mind to secure its increased de- 
sires than for a benighted, aimless intellect to obtain its 
bare necessities. Labor, to the former, is strength and 
development, to the latter, compulsory drudgery. 

To multiply desires, comforts and necessities, and 
make it possible for all to secure them, is a potent factor 
in civilization and enlightenment. Intellectual needs 
are infinitely more prolific than physical needs; indeed, 
more knowledge is "Nature's Remedy' ' for over pro- 
duction and idle men and mills. God and Nature pro- 
vide abundantly everywhere, and in nothing are they 
so liberal as when contributing to the comforts and de- 
sires of mankind. It is not genuine Christian discipline 
to needlessly deny ourselves any good thing. Exces- 
sive economy in the use of that which is good for us 
will never bring prosperity. Stinginess can only stop 
the wheels of enterprise. The close-fisted miser is 
usually a social vagabond, if not an infidel. God wants 
all his children to enjoy far more of the good things 



222 MANHOOD'S MORNING. 

around them than they are ready to believe or admit. 

Not only does knowledge increase desires and the 
ability to gratify these desires, but it makes men more 
aesthetic, refined and discriminating. It creates a de- 
mand for a better standard of quality. To know of 
a good thing is to want it. To understand quality 
causes a demand for the best. Mankind will never do 
itself justice until it secures everything it needs, and 
until all these things are the best that human skill, in 
dustry and genius can produce. 

As ignorance is destroyed and knowledge increases, 
supply and demand wall undergo a revolution. With 
improved intellectual conceptions the people will de- 
mand better clothes and houses, better markets and 
harvests, better milk and butter, bread and beefsteak, 
better horses and cattle, farms and farmers, fruits and 
flowers, better roads and methods of locomotion, better 
newspapers and books, teachers and leaders, better 
doctors and medicine, better manhood and morals, 
mind and manners, better fathers and mothers, hus- 
bands and wives, sons and daughters, better churches 
and creeds, preachers and Christians, better laws and 
lawyers, officials and citizens, better work and better 
pay, better employers and employees, better homes and 
better hearts, better hopes and better joys. The mil- 
lennium will be little else than that good time when 
knowledge shall fill the earth, and when every human 
need will be met and when every man will be liberally 
supplied from the abundance. 

Young men must destroy poverty . There is a poverty 
in our nation constantly growing more widespread and 
organic which is slavish, unjust and oppressive. It is 
too true that poverty has become the menace of all and 
the inevitable doom of a vast number. Our nation 
during four centuries, has accumulated property 



WHAT YOUNG MEN MUST DO. 223 

to the value of over $65,000,000,000. But in dealing 
it out to her children, practically the whole amount has 
been given to one million men, leaving over sixty 
million with only a pittance. Seventy per cent, of the 
wealth of the nation has been given to 200,000 men. 
Each one of these men, on an average, hold enough 
possessions, either active or latent, to support one 
thousand of his neighbors and, at the same time, a 
majority of these neighbors are struggling against 
poverty and must live and die poor in spite of them- 
selves. 

Not only is the wealth in the hands of a few, but we 
are fostering a system of industrial bondage. Said 
Hon.H. A. Herbert, Secretary of the Navy, in a recent ad- 
dress: * 'We are entering upon an era of vast enterprises 
that threaten to occupy, to the exclusion of others, all 
the avenues of human progress. ' ' Capitalized corpora- 
tions, gigantic enterprises, mammoth stores, railroads 
reaching from lakes to gulf, or from ocean to ocean, 
under one management, industrial plants with millions 
of capital, protected by trusts, combinations and law, 
are rapidly taking possession of the field and smaller 
enterprises are destined to disappear. "Human wit," 
says Mr. Herbert, "seems unable to devise, without 
dangerously curtailing the natural liberty of the citizen, 
any plan for the prevention of these monopolies, and 
the effect is the accumulation of vast wealth by the few 
and the narrowing opportunities of the many." 

The love of money is the master passion of the 
American people. Wealth is our aristocracy; it rules 
in politics, makes our laws and is the octopus in manu- 
facturing and commerce. Wealth has grown aggres- 
sive, heartless and over powering, while poverty has be- 
come embarrassed, passive and weak. Even honest 
toil — the curse of honest sweat — at fair wages has be- 



224 manhood's morning. 

come a luxury that is denied to many. There are 
multitudes of men and women, representing the choice 
fibre of the race, who are as veritable slaves to the sor- 
did demands of wealth as were the human chattels that 
hoed the corn and picked the cotton in the "Sunny 
South" in " 'Sixty-one. " In form of government we 
are a republic, in practical experience we are a des- 
potism; in religion we are Christians in business we 
are cannibals. 

Nothing is more certain than that the inherited and 
legitimate road to life, liberty and the pursuit of happi- 
ness is being narrowed and obstructed by the power of 
concentrated wealth. It is also true that no people are 
so embarrassed and humiliated by poverty as Ameri- 
cans, and iu no land is poverty so unnecessary, so out 
of place or so abominable as in the United States. 

"Wealth in the grow is death, but life diffused; 
.As poison heal.?, in just proportions used : 
In heap, like ambergris, a stink it lies, 
But, well dispersed, is incense to the skies." 

' 'The danger," said Dr. Howard Crosby: "which 
threatens the uprooting of society, the demolition of 
civil institutions, the destruction of liberty, and the 
desolation of all, is that which comes from the rich 
and powerful classes iu the community." At a time 
when Benjamin Harrison had cause to ponder well his 
words he said: "I do not believe that a republic can 
live and prosper whose wage-earners do not receive 
enough to make life comfortable; who do not have 
some upward avenue of hope before them." 

America is the richest nation on the earth and its 
rapid development and increase of wealth have no 
parallel. Above a livelihood, we are increasing in 
riches $2,ooo,oco,ooo annually, or over $5,000,0.0 
daily; more than $2,000 for every boy that becomes a. 



WHAT YOUNG MEN MUbT DO. 2 2 > 

man. Our nation is capable of supporting 1,000,000,- 
000 people, and its present population could be sup- 
ported by four of its larger states, leaving forty states 
unoccupied. It might be said that the sun never sets 
upon our possessions; before his last rays fade from the 
western isles of Alaska the dawning sunlight falls upon 
the pines of Maine. 

In such a nation there should be a constant and in- 
exhaustable demand for young men. There should be 
abundant room for all, work for every pair of hands 
and a just reward for every honest effort. It should 
be possible for every young man to, not only earn a 
livelihood, but to develop and accumulate and, at a 
proper time get married under favorable prospects, to 
support his family and rear his children respectably, 
to build a home and eventually pay for it, to furnish it 
with all the comforts of modern convenience, to supply 
the library with the best of books and the centre-table 
with the best of magazines, to keep all comfortably 
and even fashionably clothed, both summer and win- 
ter; to live upon seasonable, wholesome food, to secure 
good educational and church advantages, to afford time 
for recreation, entertainments and amusements, to 
keep coal in the bin, credit in the community and 
money in the bank, to have much to enjoy and more 
to love and to retire at a proper season and enjoy his 
declining years as a reward for his labors. 

The development of the home-life to its full and 
proper extent would obliterate hard times forever. 
Millions of homes should be built at once and enough 
furniture, household goods, cooking utensils, pianos, 
books, painth gs, and useful and beautiful commodities 
are needed to keep every factory running day and 
night, and every hand and brain, every artist and 
artisan busy for a decade. The universal ownership of 



226 manhood's morning. 

homes is the palladium of national safety and content- 
ment. Then will men have something to love and 
cherish; then will the financial and industrial ques- 
tions settle themselves. Every young man should be 
taught to look forward to a home of his own, to pray 
for it, to strive for it, and, if necessary, fight for it. 

Poverty, as it exists to-day, is a concrete wrong. It 
is the mother of crime and the chief cause of intemper- 
ance, ignorance and degradation. That the rich are 
growing more wealthy, and more fortified in their 
possessions, and the poor more dependent and doomed 
is a disgrace as shameful as it is momentous. 

Poverty is chiefly a political condition. While it is 
reached by a thousand paths and while much of that 
which exists shows individual faults, yet existing con- 
ditions are such as to strongly favor poverty and make 
it the unavoidable lot of multitudes of people. It will 
never be overthrown or greatly lessened until it is done 
through political action. 

It is unmistakably true that the destruction of poverty 
means that the many, instead of the few, must control 
the wealth of the nation. As long as extreme wealth 
is possible and desirable to a few, extreme poverty 
will' be the enforced fate of the many. As long as 
America is the paradise of the rich it will be the pur- 
gatory of the poor. 

With rare exceptions, concentrated wealth is un- 
scrupulous/ ) heartless and despotic. "The love of 
money is the root of all evil. ' ' The nation is crowded 
with men who worship at the shrine of greed; mam- 
mon is their god; they "will be rich," and to obtain 
their goal are willing to resort to methods "which 
drown men in destruction and perdition. "Avarice 
and luxury have been the ruin of every great state/ ' 
May it never be said of America that poverty 



WHAT YOUNG MEN MUST DO. 22/ 

"Crushes into dumb despair 
One-half the human race." 

When wealth, in the power of its concentration, 

monopolizes and oppresses, corners and crushes; when 
it grows sordid, heartless and despotic; when it brings 
starvation, rags and ignorance; when it breeds slaves, 
paupers and criminals; when it becomes un-American 
and unjust; when it manipulates mantraps, tempta- 
tions, passions and credulity as stratagems of business; 
when it debases politics, pollutes morals, defies law, 
obliterates the Sabbath and corrupts literature; when it 
disgraces the face of the nation with haunts of shame 
and dram-shops that ruin one hundred daughters and 
bury in dishonored graves two hundred sons, every 
day in the year; when it ceases to be a blessing to those 
who hold it or a benefit to others, then it becomes a 
common foe and a national peril, to be hated, controlled 
and scattered. For young men to ignore their re- 
sponsibility under such conditions is political and re- 
ligious perfidy, cowardice and treason. 

It is not possible for socialism, anarchy, nihilism or 
political demagogues, hungry for the spoils of office, to 
lessen poverty. These are morbid growths upon the 
body politic and are, of themselves, evils to be routed 
and destroyed. The rich will never antagonize poverty, 
and their benefactions, no matter how princely, can 
never atone for its cause . Help and philanthropy cannot 
substitute inherited rights. It dwarfs manhood to 
trail as the protege and puppet of wealth. * 'Nine- 
tenths of the money given to benefit the healthy poor 
does more harm than good." Nor can gigantic indus- 
tries improve existing conditions. A century ago 
Franklin said: "The time will come when men will 
not have to work more than four or five hours daily to 
meet the demands of labor." Labor-saving machinery 



228 manhood's morning. 

and enlarged facilities are making his prophesy true. 
And human wit was never more anxious to curtail ex- 
penses, invent machines to do the work of men, to 
concentrate force and labor and send men adrift in idle- 
ness. Mankind must learn to look elsewhere than to 
the rich or to wage-earning for occupation and success 
in life. 

Young men have the inherited right, the essential 
strength and the patriotic incentives to overthrow 
poverty and drive it from the land. The conflict is 
theirs and it belongs to none other. Over three million 
young men vote for the first time at each national 
election. They are not simply the ' 'balance of power' ' 
but they are the power itself. Every vote of theirs 
should go to crush a wrong and free a righteous cause 
and make that cause enthroned. 

Young men have no right to remain passive and 
consign themselvs to poverty's enslaving and degrad- 
ing influence and their families to a life-long struggle 
against privation. He who fails to provide for his 
own house, writes the Apostle: * 'denies the faith and 
is worse than an infidel." "He that despiseth the 
gain of oppressions," says the Prophet: "bread shall 
be given him." No matter what brings poverty to 
our doors it should be feared, hated and assailed as 
desperately as would be a savage wolf that seeks to in- 
vade our firesides and steal our children. 

It is the duty of young men to demand that life's 
pathway reach down to the level of the lowest and> un- 
obstructed and broad enough for all, reach the 
summit of the highest possibilities. Wealth should 
be the servant of all mankind and the master of none. 
It should be support to the weak, power to the worthy 
and a loyal and potent force in building the nation. 
Wealth should make it possible for all to honorably 



WHAT YOUNG MEN MUST DO. 229 

succeed and unnecessary for any to wholly fell. 
Wealth should be the possession of the people and 
poverty, in free America, should be unknown. 

Young men must forward and exalt the nation. 
Great is the work of Americans. We are entering up- 
on an era of the world's history, surpassing beyond 
comparison, any past age. 

"We are living, -we are dwelling 
In a grand and awfil time. 
In an a-?e on ages telling — 
To be living is sublimeP' 

Confidence in the future has become a part of the 
national faith. Never did the people so quickly absorb 
and implicitly trust in new ideas and inventions. 
Genius and talent no longer live and die unappreciated. 
A market is always in waiting for the product of the 
most gifted brain or the more skillful hand. The 
people accept with unbounded confidence every worthy 
contribution to the world's greatness. 

Mechanical invention is so rapid that it is revolution- 
ary in its effects. In electricity, alone, there are 1,000 
ooo miles of telegraph, by which are sent over 60,000, 
000 messages annually, and there are in operation over 
700,000 telephones. ' 'Electricity,' ' says Chauncey 
Depew : "is to be largely the substitute for the horse; 
. . . it is to furnish light for dwelling and factory, for 
hospital and highway; it is to give heat for cooking 
and for comfort; it is to be the power for the machine- 
ry of mill and the press of newspaper; it is to be the 
motor for transportation by land and sea." From the 
coal mines come not only heat, light and power, but 
any color, from printer's ink to the tint of the rarest 
Sower; any flavor, from the strawberry or peach to the 
substance, saccharine, two hundred times sweeter than 
iVLg r; and from coal, science has evolved remedies that 



233 MANHOOD S MORNING. 

will cool the fevered brow and modify the bounding 
pulse, sooth the excited nerves and bring quiet and re- 
freshing sleep. Never were the hidden and priceless 
treasures of earth so rapidly discovered and trans- 
formed into utility as now. New uses for air, water, 
and the elements of nature follow each other in rapid 
succession. Niagara has entered upon a multiform 
mission of usefulness, and is driving the wheels of in- 
dustry, turning darkness into light and carrying man- 
kind to and fro by transmitted power. All nature, it 
would seem, has become enchanted and is offering 
itself as a sacrifice in man's behalf, and, with startling 
possibilities and magic powers, is following his bidding. 

And we will not stop in our onward march. For a 
decade the advent of a "New South/ ' the costliest 
possession that adorns our national domain, has led in 
a general tran>f >rmation. In the great West a cluster 
of new states have won a place upon the American en- 
sign. The North and East have ceased to glory in 
their age and, with renewed and more youthful vigor, 
are awakening to a more enterprising spirit. The 
cities and towns have caught the inspiration and a new 
and greater New York, a new and more substantial 
Chicago and a new and more modern Philadelphia pass 
the watchword to smaller cities, towns and hamlets 
until with renewed zeal and energy, the nation is filled 
w 7 ith industry, bustle and enterprise. 

Politics is feeling the force of improvement. Anti- 
quated notions and fossilized issues are ceasing to com- 
mand support, and the questions and issues of the new 
age are demanding the attention of patriotic and 
thoughtful men. 

The Church is renewing her youth, and, like a bride 
clad in wedding garments, she is inviting the young 
and vigorous to her sanctuaries. "Lift up your eyes.' V 



WHAT YOUNG MEN MUST DO. 23 1 

says an eminent writer: "and you may see another 
stadium of history advancing. Its aim will be to realize 
the Christianity of Christ himself, which is about to ' 
renew its youth by taking to heart the Sermon on the 
Mount. C He that sitteth on the throne is saying: 'Be- 
hold I make all things new. This earth is yet to be 
redeemed, soul and body with all its peoples, occupa- 
tions and interests/ ' Glorious thought! Wonderful 
consummation! Blessed is he who helps! 

Just before us is the dawn of a new century — the last 
of another thousand years. The progress of the past 
and the activity of the present will add momentum to 
the future and it is unspeakably full of promise. ' 'The 
future is lighted up for us/ \ says John Fiske: "with 
the radiant colors of hope. Strife and sorrow will dis- 
appear. Peace and love shall reign supreme. The 
dream of the poets, the lesson of the priest and prophet, 
the inspiration of the great musician, is confirmed in 
the light of modern knowledge.' \ Let us believe that 
man will yet banish the darkness of night and over- 
come the sting of the winter's cold and the oppression 
of the summer's sun; that he will penetrate the mysteries 
of space and look through the clouded abyss of time; 
that he will destroy ignorance, oppression, disease, 
wickedness and subdue the earth unto himself. When 
man exercises his divinely intended dominion over the 
kingdoms of nature, the earth in homage will blossom 
and bloom and bear fruit as a tribute to human indus- 
try, intelligence and virtue. 

" The United States is the chosen home of the Anglo- 
Saxon race — the race of virtue, liberty and progress. 
This race, which America is destined to develop to the 
highest perfection, has, for twelve centuries, been gain- 
ing conquests, growing in influence and in civilization 
until it has become the unrivalled and dominating race 



232 manhood's morning. 

of the world. 

In 1700 the Anglo-Saxons numbered less than 6,000- 
000 souls, while, at the present time, there are over 
120, coo, 000. They have increased more than five-fold" 1 
during the present century and are multiplying more 
rapidly than all the races of continental Europe com- 
bined, and it is possible that by the end of another cen- 
tury they will outnumber all the civilized nations of the 
earth. 

They are the m@st powerful and the richest nation 
in the world. They are in possession of one-third of 
the earth and rule over not less than 400, 000, 000 
people. They own sixty per cent, of the railroads, 
more than one-half the telegraphs and two -thirds of the 
world's shipping. The time is not far distant when 
this one race will hold more than one-half of the wealth 
of the globe. 

The Anglo-Saxons are the greatest law making and 
the most systematic people in the world, diid they have 
a genius for organization. They framed the Magna 
Charta of Great Biitian, ' 'the first popular basis of hu- 
man liberty," the Declaration of Independence and the 
Constitution of the United States, which Gladstone de- 
clares, 'is the most wonderful work ever struck off at 
a given time by the brain or purpose of man." Thi> 
race enjoys nearly all the civil liberty in the world. 
Its battles have been for worthy principles, and its con- 
quests have been victories for liberty, justice and truth. 

The Anglo-Saxon is the Christian nation of tbe world. 
Its religion is the religion of The Bible, its God is the 
Lord and its faith is in the Risen Christ. It is the race 
of heroes, martyrs, statesmen, poets philosophers 
scientists, inventors, scholars and benefactors. It has 
invented steam-power, railroads, steam navigation, 
telegraphs, the improved printing press, the use of ether, 



WHAT YOUNG ME In MUSV DO. 233 

the sewing machine, cotton gin, spinning jenny and 
harvesting machine; the value of coal, illuminating gas 
and the power of electricity. 

The Anglo-Saxon race has always been the 
champion and exmeplar of high social standards. 
While yet barbarians in the German wilds, the fathers- 
and founders of the race were ' 'as pure as the dews the 
forests shook upon their heads." Roman historians 
state that "The adulterer was buried alive in the mud, 
and the adulteress was publicly whipped through 
the streets." "Non forma, non aetate, non opibus niar- 
itum invenerit." Out of this race sprang Chivalry 
and for a thousand years it has taken the lead in high 
moral reforms and a pure family life. Its political, 
social and religious history has been marked by great 
moral uplifts. Beginning with the Reformation and Pro- 
testantism, Methodism, Presbyteriauism, Quakerism, 
Puritanism, Sunday Schools, the Temperance Crusade, 
the Young Men's Christian Association, the Woman's 
Christian Temperance Union, the Salvation Army and 
the Young People's Society of Christian Endeavor have 
been organized efforts for a higher and cleaner life, and, 
with cni exception, all of these were of Anglo-Saxon 
origin. 

The two great divisions of the Anglo-Saxon race, 
Great Britain and the United States, are the most en- 
lightened, powerful and progressive nations in the 
world, and more than one-half of the race live in the 
United States. The United States is richer, more 
energetic and progressive than Great Britain, and 
is more Anglo-Saxon than English in its genius and 
typical characteristics. Evidently the North American 
Continent is destined to become the future home of the 
highest expression of this great race. 
j The United States, to a remarkable degree, is adapted 



234 manhood's morning. 

to such a people. In climate, productiveness of soil, 
wealth of mine, water power, rivers and geographical 
and natural advantages, nature has been, not only abun- 
dant, but lavish. 

In climate, the United States is almost perfect. Spring, 
summer, autumn and winter are well developed but 
none are s© severe or prolonged as to prove debilitating 
or monotonous. Rain and sunshine, storm and caltp, 
wind and zephyr, succeed each other and form an in- 
teresting panorama, and the weather is always a wel- 
come subject for comment. Our agricultural resources 
are beyond calculation. We grow the kings of hu- 
man sustenance. Our wheat and corn, fruit and cotton , 
cattle and horses, sjieep and hogs, on account of their 
abundance and perfection, are sought by the markets 
of the world. In manufacturing we are developing ^n 
era peculiarly our own. Abundance of materials, in- 
ventive genius and diligent enterprise are sending 
civilizing products to every corner of the globe. 

Our language is the most flexible, forceful, direct 
and powerful the world has produced. It is the lan- 
guage of Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Burns, Dfy- 
den, Addison, Wordsworth, Macaulay, Scott, Dickens, 
Tennyson, Erskine, Pitt, O'Connell, Wilberforce, 
Johnson, Livingstone, Stanley, Gladstone and every 
American statesman, writer, poet, inventor and teacher. 
It is the dominating language of the world, today. 
Enshrined in its embrace are Liberty, Law, Love and the 
message of Eternal Life. 

The Anglo-Saxon language, of which our nation 
furnishes the highest expression, is better fitted than 
any other to become the language of the world. Its 
power to assimilate and expand is unlimited. Says 
Dr. Schaff: "Its composite character imparts to it a 
pliability, expansiveness and perfectibility which no 



WHAV YOUNG MEN MUST DO. 235 

other language possesses;' ' and in the opinion of Dr. 
Grimm, the eminent philologist, "in wealth, intellect- 
uality and closeness of structure none of all the living 
languages can be compared with it." 

The United States is not only ahead of any other 
nation, but none is achieving so much or advancing 
so rapidly. "Ten years in America," says a noted 
Englishman: ( 'is half a century of European progress, ' ' 
and our rate of speed is rapidly, even amazingly, on 
the increase. 

It is self-evident that God designated the United 
States as the Model Republic and the great evangelizer 
of the world. The discovery of America was the 
greatest triumph of civilization. ' 'Our whole history' ' 
says Emerson: "seems" like a last effort of the Divine 
Providence in behalf of the human race. ' ' * 'The Ameri- 
cans," says Herbert Spencer; "may reasonably look 
forward to a time when they will have produced a 
civilization grander than the world has known." 

The eyes of all lands are upon our own. America is 
the leader, the teacher, the exemplar of the world. Her 
two evangels are civil and religious liberty and these 
must be lifted high to maintain an honored and glori- 
ous career. She must lay aside the implements of 
battle and blood and go forth arrayed in the emblems 
of peace. To be as good as our fathers we must be 
better, to serve as well our generation as did they we 
must be stronger and wiser. The prophesy of Sumner 
has come to pass: ' 'The national example is more puis- 
sant than army or navy for the conquest of the world." 

The chief factor, in all these harvests of wealth and 
upward and onward movements, have been, and must 
continue to be, the young men of the nation. They 
are the heirs and owners of a sacred and proud inheri- 
tance. It is for them to accept it, to honor, amplify and 



■-""""^ 



236 manhood's MORNING. ^^^ 

uphold it and hand it down, even more rich in fruitage, 
to their children. 

As it has been in war so it must be in the'grandeurs 
and glories of peace, young men must do the work. 
A noble ancestry admonishes them and the world turns 
to them with solicitous eyes. Only* by ^morality, by 
industry, by patriotism, by religion and by the cultiva- 
tion of every righteous principle and every goua iiabit 
can they fill their lofty mission and transmit, unim- 
paired, the tenures and triumphs of the nation. ^SW^F^i 



INDEX, 



Addison., Joseph, 50 

Agassiz, Professor, 40. 

Aged, the, respect for, 159. 

Alexander the Great, 33. 

Allen, Grant, on sex instinct, 
186. ^ 

Anglo-Saxon race, 231. 

Astor, John Jacob, 58. 

Asylums, 87. 

Aulubon, John J. 40. 

Babies, grown up„39. 

Bachelors, 144. 

Bacon, Lord, 37; on self rever- 
ence, 176. 

Bacon, Roger, persecuted, 215. 

Bancroft, George, 45; industry, 
207. 

Barnum, P. T., 58. 

Barr, Amelia E. on training. 92 

Beecher, Dr. Lyman, preaching 
53. 

Jeethoven, 51; industry, 209. 

] einqr something, 178. , 
ernini, 54. 

Best years of Life, 13. 

The Bible, for young men, 26; 
to young men, 137. 

Bicycles, increase of, 229. 

Billings, Prof. John S., on 
chastity, 137. 

Bill : ngs, Josh, on "down nil," 
64. ^ 

Blackwell, Dr. S. C, on conti- 
nence, 82. 

Blever, Dr. J. M., on purity. 
137. 

Booth, Edwin, 51. 

Booth, Junius Brutus, 51. 

Boyhood, end of, 3. 

Boys, ruined early, 10D. 



"Breaking Home Ties," 20. 

Bribery, 112. 

Bryant, W. C. 49; writing Than- 

atopsis, 208. 
Brooks, Phillip, on one* 

talented, 213. 
Brougham, Lord 39; on young 

men, 8; early rises, 206. 
Bunyan, John, "Vanity Fair,'* 

64; in Jail, 217. 
Burritt, Elihu, 46. * 

Burns, Robert, 51. 
Burton, Dr. on tobacco, 130. 
Burke, Edmund, 206. 
Business, corrupt rosthols of, 

103. 
Business on large scale, 106. 
Buxton, Sir Fox, on success, 32. 
Byron, Lord, 51. 
Caesar, Augustus, 36. 
Calvin, John, 48. 
Campbell, Thomas, 50. 
Capital, power of, 108. 
Carlyle, Thomas, on looking 

for w r ork. 105. 
Cavendish, Henry, 40. 
Central years of Life, 15. 
Century, the new, 231. 
Chapin, Prof H. D., on chastity 

137. 
Chatham. Lord, close student, 

207. 
Charles V, 34; a fogy, 216. j 

Chesterfield, a pains taker, 207. 
Child tnining, 98, 100. 
Childs, George W., 59. 
Chin-se Wall, 9. 
Child-bearing opposed, 94. 
Choate, Rufus, 46; a slave to 

study, 2(7. 



238 



Index. 



Christians, becoming, 25; dere- 
lict, 114. 

Church, failure of, 113; and 
voung men, 166; essential, 
194. 

Cicero, 34; close student, 206. 

Cigars, 73. 

Cigarettes, 73; effects of, 129. 

Ciark, Rev. F. E. 49. 

Clarke, Adam, industry, 207; 
lazy boy, 217. 

Clay, Henry, self- training, 207. 

Class distinctions, 116. 

Clough, A. H., power of must, 
• 222.. 

Clokey, J. W., on vice, 88. 

Coal products, 229.. 

Colt, Samuel, 44. 

Cobbett, William, industry, 207. 

Columbus, unappreciated, 216. 

Compton, Samuel, 44. 

Companions, good and evil,100. 

Comstojk, Anthony, on litera- 
ture, 1C1. 

Confidence in the future, 229. 

Confucius, 47; rising early, 176. 

D'Alembert, 38. 

Dante, 49; his hell, 136. 

Dauiel, 60. 

Darwin, Erasmus, 41; on time, 
208. 

David, 59; advice, 176. * 

Davy, Sir Humphrey, 38. 

DeCaus, steam navigation, 215. 

DeCosta, Dr. B. D., on vice, 8i. 

Deeds, heroic, 29. 

Demophilus, first fruits, 12./ 

Demosthenes, 34; industry, 206; 
hissed, 217, 

Eepew, Chauncey, electricity, 
229. 

Dickens, Chas. , 55; on vice, 208; 

Di igence in business, 183. 

Disease and death,, 140. 

Disraeli, 55; on opportunity, 
176; ridiculed, 217. 

Tore, 53. 

Drummond, Henry, on sin, 122. 



Dugdale, on heredity, 96. 
Edison, 43; on work, 209. 
Edholm, Mrs. C, on impurity, 

82. 
Education, influence of, 117. 
Electricity, 229. 
Elisha, 61. 
Emerson, 32; on Sabbath, 196; 

on progress, 202. 
Enemies, microscopic, 124. 
Ericsson, John, 43. 
Everett, Edward, 55; on success, 

150; law and passion, 179. 
Evarts, Wm. M., on chan cter, 

176. 
Evil habits, cost of, 138. 
Europe sends degenerates, 97. 
Example, guilt weakens, 115. 
Failures in business, 104. 
Families in nation, 108. 
Faraday, Michael, 39. 
Fatherhood, 218. 
Farragut, David, 34. 
Field, Cyrus W., 209. 
Filialism, 158. 

Fiske, John, on future, 231. 
Fitch, John, a suicide, 215. 
Fogyism, 213. 
Force of voung men, 8. 
Foster, John, 112. 
Fox, George, 47; persecuted, 

216. ■'' 
Franklin, 37; on labor, 150. 
Froebel, on training, 117, 218. i 
Fulton, 43; unencouraged, 215.; 
Gladstone, 35; on latent Spirit, I 

11; on Constitution, 232. 
Galileo, 39; old age, 214. 
Gambling, ,84. ^L_. : : 

Garfield, on self-help, 19. 

Garrison, Wm. L., 55; opposed, 

tmt 217: . i - ... 

Gauss, 38. 
Guy— Lussac, 39. 
Geikie, on Hope, 150. * 
Gibbon, Edward, 44; diligence 

Of, 207. : 

Girard, Stephen, 58. 



INDEX. 



239 



Goethe, 57; industry of, 208. 
Good and evil compared, 118. 
Goodrich, on politics, 165. 
Goodyear, perseverance of, 209. 
Gould, Jay, 58. 
Grady, Henry W., on homes, 

164. 
Gray, Thomas, 51; patience of, 

208. 
Greeley, Horace, 59. 
Habits, 26; of aged, 124. 
Hamilton, Alexander, 36; on 

study, 207. 
Hamilton, Sir Wm. R., 40. 
Handel, 52; a worker, 209. 
Hannibal, 34. 
Haydn, 53. 
Harrison, Benjamin, on wages, 

224. 
Harvey, Dr., discoverv, 215. 
Haven, H. P., 216. 
Health and physique, 218. 
Helmholtz, 41. 
Henry, Patrick, on self-help, 

176; industry, 207. 
Herbert, Hon. H. A., on mo- 
nopolies, 223. 
Heredity, 95, 219. 
Holland, J. G., on youth, xiv; 

on temptation, 92; effects 

of . vice, 122. 
Holb'fook, Dr. M. L., on con- 
tinence, 137. 
Holmes, on opposition ;217. 
Home, leaving, 19; seeking a, 

21; lack of, 17; needed, 225. 
Hopkins, Mark, on efforts, 222. 
Hough, Dr. H. C, on chastity, 

137. 
Hovenden, Thomas, 20. 
Howe, Elias, 42. 
Howe, Julia Ward, on passion, 

122. 
Hugo, Victor, 46. 
Hum bolt,, 40. 
Hunter, John, on will, 150; in- 

dustrv, 209. 
Huxley, Prof., 129. 



Idleness, enforced, 104, 105. 
Ignorance, 85; must be de j 

stroyed, 220. 
Impurity, personal and social, 

106, 
Immigration, 96; influence of 97; 
Indifference, 89, 
Intemperance, 76; effects of, 13i< 
Instruction regarding sex. 102J 
Irreverence, 69; effects of, 125. 
Irving, Washington, 45. 
Jay, John, 36; chief-justice, 155, 
Jefferson, Thomas, 36; on to-; 

bacco, 130. 
Jenner, Dr., vaccination, 215. 
Jesus Christ, 26, 62; preaching. 

170. 
Jeremiah, 61. 
Johnson, Samuel, 57. 
John, the Apostle, 62. 
John, the Baptist, 62. 
Josiah, 61. 
Joseph, 60. 

Josephus, the historian, 45. 
Kellogg, Prof. J. H. , on tobacco, 

129; on vice, 122. 
Kempis, Thos. A., on begin 

ning, 12. 
Knowledge, advantages of, 220. 
Labor saving machinery, 106. 
LaFayette, 33. 
Landfall taken, 105. 
Lathrops, Miss, Sunday School,* 

126. 
Large versus small concerns. 10S. 
"Laughing Gras," 38. i 

Laws, unfair, 153. 
Lawlessness, 87. 
Licentiousness, 80, 134. 
Linnaeus, 39. 
Lincoln, 217. 
Literature, vicious, 100. 
Liquor bill, 145. 
Liszt, 53. 

Livingstone, David, 55. 
Livelihood, difficult, 104. 
Lodge, H. C, on Webster, 35. 
Longfellow, 50; on courage, 150, 



240 



Index. 



Loomis, S. L., 222. 

Louis XIV, 34. 

"Love in a Cottage," 164. 

Luther, 47; opposed, 216, 217. 

Lyttoi, Lord, 55. 

Macaulay, Lord, 55; on cotton- 
gin, 42. 

Magna Charta, 232. 

Madison, James, 36. 

Man, study of, 1. 

Marden, 0- S., on character, 176. 

Marrying, 22. 

Massillion, painstaking, 208. 

McCormick's reaper, 42. 

Mead, Prof., on tobacco, 129. 

Melanchthon, Philip, 47. 

Men An I women compared, 160. 

Men, young, of nation, 2'; who 
are?, 3; number in U. S., 7; 
marriage of, 22, 144, 262; 
patriotic, 65; morals of, 66, 
90; why go wrong, 93, 121; 
manufactured, 93; out of 
work, 104; are wholesouled, 
138; fathers of posterity, 
139; death rate among, 142; 
in society, 142, 171; and 
vice, 143; and reform, 143; 
belong everywhere, 151; 
and offices, 153; as teach- 
ers, 159; and home, 161; in 
politics, 164; in church, 167, 
166; and seniors, 173; what 
must be,, 177; high aims, 
180; what must do, 203; 
self-help, 203; must work, 
206- and health, 219; and 
ignorance, 220; and pov- 
erty, 222; exalt all nation, 
229. 

Mendelssohn, 52; a worker, 209. 

Methodism, 47. 

Michael, Angelo, 54; industry, 

209. 
,Milburn, Rev. W. H., 41. 
jMillais, 54. 

^Milton, 49; on cynics, 69; on 
1 purity, 191. 



Monopolies, 104, 223. 
Montgomery, James, 50. 
Moody, D. L., 48; on crime, 88. 
Moore. Thomas, 50. 
Mo bid appetites, 96. 
Moral uprightness, 198. 
Morgan, George, 52. 
Morton, Dr. T. G., 42. 
Motherhood, woman's sphere, 

163. 
Motley, his industry, 207. 
Mozart, 52. 
Muller, 45. 

Napoleon, 34; on courage, 176. 
Nation, progress of 233. 
Neander, 45. 
"New South," the, 230. 
Newton, 34; industrv, 208. 
N. Y. World, quoted, 7. 
Occupation, choosing an, 17. 

lack of, 18. 
Opportunity, 24. 
Ovid*32. 
Page, Prof. C. M., on chastity, 

137. 
Parable of talents, 213. 
Parker, Dr. Willard,on tobacco, 

129. 
Parker, Theodore, 57. 
Pascal, 38. 
Patriotism, 185. 
Paying the Piper, 123. 
Peloubet,Dr.,on the pledge, 198. 
Penn, Wm., persecuted, 216. 
Pereira, Jonathan, 57. 
Pericles, 206. *~~ 

Pessimism, 210. 
Petofi, Alexander, 50. 
Phillips, Wendell, 56; on office- 

holders, 155; on the pledge, 

198; hated, 216. 
Pictures, vulgar ,100. 
Pitt, William, 37; a drudge, 207. 
Plato, 37; on ignorance, 64. 
Piatt, James, progress, 150. 
Pledge, the, 197. 
Poe, Edgar A., 50; on compos- 

i ig, 208. 



INDEX. 



2 4 I 



Politics, corrupt, 111; woman 
in, 111; inherited, 165; de- 
mands of, 230. 

Population, of U.S., 7. 

Porter, Prof. E. H., on conti- 
nence, 137. 

Pomeroy, Dr. H. S., on mar- 
riage, 162. 

Poverty, 108, 222. 

Priestley, Jos., persecuted, 215. 

Profanity, 71; effects of, 126. 

Purity, 185; enobling, 191. 

Quacks, pamphlets of, 102; and 
vice, 136. 

Quality, wanted in men, 178. 

Race amalgamation, 97. # 

-Raphael, 54. 

Reason^ men go wrong, 93 

Reade, Dr. A. A., on tobacco, 
129. 

Religion, 25, 113, 193; carica- 
turing, 114. 

Rich men, 107, 158, 226. 

R'ght versus wrong, 119. 

Rougi^au, 276. 

Rosini, 53. 

Rubenstein, 53. 

Ruskin, John, 46; on time, 22:2. 

Sabbath Day, the, 195, 

Saloons, 76 

Samson, 61. 

Samuel, 60. 

Saul, King, 60. 

Saul of Tarsus, 61. 

Saxe, on self-help, 20. 

Schaff, Dr., 234. 

School teaching, 110. 

Scientific workers, 115. 

Seaver, Dr. S. W., on tobacco, 
129. 

Secret sin, 79; effects of, 133. 

Self-help, 203. 

Senate and Congress, 154. 

Sex deterioration, 141. 

Sexual indulgence, 136. 
nature, 186. 
Shadrach, &c,, 62. 



Shakespeare, on man, 191. 

Sheridan, 51. 

Shrady, Dr. G. F.,on purity. 

Simpson, Bishop, on age, 156. 

Smith, Dr. A. J., on continence, 
137. 

Smith, Sidney, 32. 

Smoking, 73, 75, 127. 

Society, influences of, 117; an >\ 
young men, 171; of the fu- 
ture, 172. 

South, Bishop, on birth, 92. 

Southey, Robert, 49. 

Solomon, 59. 

Spencer, Prof., on tobacco, 1-9. 

Spencer, Herbert, on vice, 215. 

Sperry, Prof. D. B., on conti- 
nence, 138. 

Spurgeon, C. H., 49. 

Stanley, Henry M., 55 

Steele, Proi. T. D , on tobacco* 
129. 

Stevenson, George, 44, 209. 

Stowell, Dr., on tobacco. 129. 

Strong, Josiah. D. D., on dee, 
64 

Sumner, Chas., a worker, 207 

Snnday work, 97; newspapers, 
101. 

Sun never sets on U. S., 225. 

Supreme Court 155. 

Talmage, T. D^Witt, mans 
mission, 222. 

Taylor, BhvmH,46. 

11 Jeremy, 48; on Wife, 
102; on sin, 122. 

Teachers, 110; men, 160. 

Tennvson, Alfred, 49; on spring, 
188. 

Thomas, Theodore, 53. 

Titcomb, Timothy, 27. 

Tobacco, 72; evils of, 127; And 
crime, 130. 

Training, lack of, 89, 100. 

Todd, John, D. D., on will, 32. 
Tramps, 87. 

Tyler, John, 36. 



242 



Index. 



Tyndall, John, 57, 41. 

Twelve million strong, 1. 

Value of U.S., 107. 

Vanderbilt, Commodore, 58. 

Venereal diseases, 135. 

Vigilance for the right, 184. 

Vice, 66; suppression of, 101; 
contagious, 127; cost of, 138; 
mortality and, 141; social 
effects, 142; and influence, 
143; and marriage, 144; and 
business, 145. 

Virgil, 208. 

Vulgarity, 70; in literature, 100; 
and profanity, 126. 

Washington, 33'; his cabinet, 
155. 

Watterson, Henry, 59. 

Watt, James, 44; industry, 207; 
opposed, 216. 

Wealth, concentration of, 107; 
of U. S., 107; arbitrary, 108. 

Webster, Daniel, 34; studies, 
207. 

Webster, Prof. David, on chas- 
tity, 137. 

Webster, Noah, industry of, 
217. 

Webb, Mrs. Dora, on immi- 
grants, 82. 



Weber, 53. 

Wesley, Charles, 47. 

Wesley, John, 47; a worker, 207, 
opposed, 216. 

West, Benjamin, 54; diligence, 
209. 

Wetty, J. B., on passions, 83. 

Where young men belong, 151, 
174. 

Whitney,Eli, 42. 

Whitefield, George, 48. 

Whittier, John G., 50; on duty, 
64. 

Wife, 22; good and bad, 192. 

Wilberforce, 35; opposed, 216. 

Wild oats and other weeds, 65. 

Willard, Francis, 162. 

Williams, George, 49. 

Wise, Daniel, on youth, xii, 
advice, 12. 

Women w T age earners, 109; vot- 
ing, Hi; in man's place, 
159; mission of, 163; loyalty 
to, 192. 

Work, 206. 

Wrong, vantage, ground, 120. 

Wyeth, Dr. J. A., on continence, 
137. 

Young, Dr. Thomas, 41. 



